Aliens Hoobajoo edition
by Hoobajoo
Summary: REWRITE OF THE MOVIE/BOOK Sticking to the same characters and feel, but I'm making some major deviations in story direction.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Cold, alone and miniscule, the little life raft drifted along through the void of space like a glass bottle following the current of an invisible black ocean. Stars, both those being born from titanic clashes of stray rock and compressed gas as well as those dying like a candle at the end of its wick bore witness to the craft's effortless non-journey. The little craft had been drifting a long time going by the conventional perception of time of human kind, but to these monsters of the void, it was the merest moment. Like great aging turtles, they went about their business of creation, death and rebirth whilst watching the rest of the world's inhabitants speed by about their own business.

In that sense, the lifeboat's passenger was much like the heavenly bodies of slow light in that years seemed like the shortest heartbeats as well. In truth, it was even shorter. Shut off from the world in the clutches of a cryosleep there was no heed to the world outside other than a distant hope for contact. Rescue.

After the elation of survival had come the resignation of loneliness. The colossal distances required to be covered to find the nearest of her kind were too great to properly comprehend yet she knew it was so. Thus, it was deemed necessary to resign herself into a sleep not far from death as the life boat travelled.

The navigation systems were damaged during the final attack, precious circuitry burnt to uselessness, but in the moment before they had been destroyed, they had aligned the life boat with a trajectory toward known salvation. The survivor hoped the life boat's coarse would stay true and eventually send her home, but her rational mind would not let her delude herself with such hope. The chances were tiny at best. Even if the journey was successful, it would take years.

And so she resigned herself to cryosleep. In all practicality, she did not doubt the tube she now lay inside of plastic and glass was a glorified coffin. As much as complex machinery and artificial intelligence kept the more mechanical aspects of her being functioning, such as a heart beat and a regular rising and falling of her chest, she supposed herself dead.

To have survived that last fight, she had only doomed herself to death from another means. At least it would be a painless one, she reasoned. Free from terror and of her own choosing. Few people had such a luxury, she reminded herself.

But thoughts such as these did not mollify the fear of death and the sadness it brought, both for the loss of her own life as well as those she had made promises to that would suffer their breaking.

"Amy." The last scratchy word from her lips escaped into the cabin's stale air only to die quickly without echo. Ripley crawled inside the tube, snapped it shut and waited to fall into deathly sleep. Jonesy, her beloved feline companion nestled in beside her and the soft itch of his whiskers on her bare leg brought a slight smile to her face just as unconsciousness came. "At least I would die smiling."

Peaceful and resigned, the craft continued its weightless journey to nowhere perhaps somewhere as time watched, hidden from view amongst the shadows of eternity.

Long ago now the life boat's systems reset themselves to divert all traces of power towards the sole task of keeping its sole passenger alive. It was because of this, that when something intangible greeted it, the craft did not notice and issued no reply.

Again the cautious greeting came, flying through the void and bouncing back to its origin to report back nothing. A dead signal.

Piercing the void, like a hand pushing aside a curtain, another craft appears and regards the life raft, unsure of what to do next. Amongst the endless nothingness, one could suppose the newcomer is either elated or sad. Perhaps both.

Elated to find some other form. Sad to find it is dead.

Unsure, the new craft sends forth a small vessel to conduct a more physical greeting. Nearly identical in size, the newcomer's scout drifts silently alongside the life boat and quickly attaches itself to the hull with a series of probing arms. Soon they are joined at the hip and the first set of eyes in a long time looks into the life boat's cabin through a tiny, but clouded window.

The eyes pull away and a robotic finger erupts in a hail of fire and sparks, cutting an opening into the life boat's side.

Droplets of condensation that previously sat comfortably on every spare surface were flung away as the air pressure adjusted sharply. Swirling and dancing in the stale air, the droplets come alive and reflect the fire of the coming intruder.

Quickly it is finished however as the violation is completed, letting the life boat's door fall inward with a loud crash. Smoke wafted and swirled and obscured any view amongst the humid air. A new mechanical arm probed forward and scanned the room. Swathes of data are sucked into the machine's sensors and processed, looking for life, looking for death and looking for the unexpected.

Satisfied, the machine withdrew and the precision of the artificial was replaced by the unevenness of human feet stepping forward into the open. Torch light tried to pierce through and largely failed, but the new human invaders were curious and hungry. Garbed in triple layer enviro suits and facemasks, they wandered through the small space and were inevitably drawn to the cryo tube. Voices filtered with static cut through the silence.

"It's a woman."

"And something else by her hip. What is that?"

"Cat."

"Ginger fur."

"Bio readouts are all in the green, looks like she's alive."

"Cat too?"

"I s'pose so. The scanner's not telling me it's dead."

"Ah, shit."

"Yeah, there's goes salvage rights. Let's see if we can get a rescue fee. Who's this tub belong to?"

"She's from the Nostromo. Cargo ship. Looks like she was due back to Earth with a 10 million tonne payload of iron ore. She had a crew of eight."

"Any idea what's happened?"

"Says here, something about her being the only survivor."

Xxx

A sharp blur of white light slowly revealed itself and grew in intensity until it became less of curiosity and more a source of pain and discomfort. Feeling quickly revealed itself and Ripley became conscious of herself being awake.

She blinked and then winced when her eyes stung and her throat burned. She was sore all over, immensely tired. It was an effort to keep her eyes open. Slowly her vision sharpened and she could make out dots surrounding the light. Also, she became aware that she was lying down. A beige ceiling of plasterboard revealed itself and she tried to lift her head up.

"Whoa, whoa, slow down."

A soft voice came from an unknown direction, muffled but audible. It was soothing, yet disconcerting. Ripley did not relax, rather tensed up as painful as it was to do so.

"Lie down. Relax. You're safe."

"Wuh?"

Ripley fell back down and convulsed in a fit of coughing. Pain wracked her throat and spine with every push of her diaphragm. Her mouth, previously dry and feeling like sandpaper was now wet. Her tongue was numb, but she guessed it was blood.

"It's OK. Calm down. You're OK. Just relax."

_I'm trying,_ Ripley wanted to scream at the unseen voice, but the coughing continued until it finally subsided. She could still feel a tickle in her throat and nose as though the slightest wrong move would trigger it again. Ripley closed her eyes, focused and felt her head cool. The source of the voice could sense she was calming down and uttered soothing encouragement, even if it continued to make Ripley uncomfortable.

"Are you calm now? If you're calm, I can tell you what's going on, OK?"

Ripley nodded, mindful that an attempt to talk would invite more pain. She kept her eyes closed.

"Your name is Ellen Ripley. You served on the Nostromo mining cargo ship. You were due back to Earth with seven others, but we found you on a drifting life boat way off course. A salvage team found your ship and brought you in. Do you understand?"

Ripley nodded, feeling the memory flooding back.

"Are you OK? Would you like some water?"

Ripley nodded again, needing something to distract her. She felt a panic rising from inside. Something dark and terrible. Her eyes still closed, she felt a straw placed gently on her lips and found cool water rushing slowly in. It was a glorious feeling, like some great flood extinguishing hellfire. It was cleansing and curiously also washed away the itch to cough. She swallowed it down without trouble.

Her head cleared quickly.

"It's got some Panazol in it. It'll help clear you up. That better?"

"Yuh."

"Would you like to sit up?"

"Yuh."

Small hands slithered in behind her shoulders and guided her up. The bed itself rose as well, probably doing most of the lifting, Ripley thought. Thankfully, her head did not swim as expected and she ventured the risk of opening her eyes.

She saw the owner of the discomforting voice sitting down beside her. He was a pale faced man, seemingly at home in the small confines of the sterile and bare room. He wore overly neat clothes, pressed and starched with a collar that appeared as though it may have some use as a cutting implement. Ripley imagined it slicing a sandwich and she was conscious of how hungry she was all of a sudden.

His eyes gave away his character in an instant, interested in her but gave no hint of genuine care even if his hands lay inoffensively on the chair arms and his slouch suggested casualness and familiarity.

Perhaps that was what set Ripley on edge a little was the feeling that he had perhaps grown accustomed to her presence. _How long has he been watching me?_

"That's better." he smiled.

Ripley smiled, not for him, only because she did feel better.

"What's going on? Is this Earth?"

The man squirmed in his seat as though it had grown pins in the cushion and he paused a moment before replying, "No. My name is Burke. Carter Burke. I work for the company."

"Company?"

"Yes, but don't let that fool you, I'm really an OK guy." He laughed nervously, but settled back into his slouched posture.

"What happened?"

"Well, that's mostly a question for you. Like I said, we found you alone on a life boat in the middle of nowhere. It's dumb luck that the salvage team found you at all, let alone after so long."

"Long? How long?"

"Um…. 57 years."

Ripley tried to speak, but her voice failed her.

"Yeah, I know. Something obviously happened, you jumped into your lifeboat and you've been drifting for a long time. There's no record of what happened to the rest of crew, or the Nostromo. It's missing."

"Amy….." Ripley whispered, but Burke did not hear.

"We would very much like to know what happened to you. You aren't under arrest or anything."

"Fif-… You said fifty seven years? What year is it?"  
"Uh… 2351."

"What the fu-? Amy. Where's Amy. Is she alive?"

"Uh."

"My daughter! Is she alive? I promised her I'd be at her birthday! She's eleven!" Ripley shouted, grabbing the sides of her bed.

Burke raised his hands defensively, trying to calm her. "N-no. She died two years ago."

Ripley railed at the news, trying to jump out of bed, but instead fell back into the mattress and pillow. Her body spasmed and convulsed as she screamed. "No no no no no. I killed it! I killed that fucking thing!"

"What happened?" Burke tried to shout calmly above Ripley's rising screams. "You said something before about a monster. In your sleep. You said it over and over. What happened?"

"Nononononononono." Ripley was lost to reason and pain wracked her frame once more. "No! It's here! It's inside me!" She tore at her robe, trying to rip the fabric apart, but he fingers felt like butter and her arms rubber bands.

"What's inside you? You kept telling us something was inside you. We scanned you, but we couldn't find anything. What happened?"

Alarms beeped and two nurses rushed into the room as Ripley continued to flail and scream in a grief-stricken panic. Burke backed away and could only watch as the two women held Ripley down and shot her with a sedative. Ripley's face was a deep pink as she fought ferociously, and the nurses had to almost smother with their own weight in spite of her crippled muscles. Her hair had been brushed neatly beforehand, but now it was a tangled mess, snaking across her eyes and cheeks like blood from a deep wound, but fell back down to the sheets when she finally dropped into unconsciousness.

Xx

"There are no prejudices here. No judgement. You don't have to feel ashamed of anything you did, or didn't do. I simply want to hear your story. To know what happened."

Ripley sat in the chair hugging herself to try and stop the involuntary shivering. She refused to let her feet touch the floor, instead perching them on the edge of her seat, even as they ached with pins and needles.

"You don't believe me."

"I do believe you."  
The psychiatrist was soothing much in the same way Burke was, but more practised. Perhaps it was because the man's motivations had less to do with money and more professional curiosity, but nevertheless Ripley did not trust him any more than she did Burke.

He was a fat man, old and white haired, which she supposed gave him a grandfatherly appearance that would normally serve to impart a sense of calm and trustworthiness. This effect was broken by the knowledge that Burke was listening in, watching from a camera mounted in the ceiling, even if it was unseen with the naked eye. Ripley knew it was there.

"Please Ripley. I'm not here to judge you or tell you did anything wrong. I just want to hear your side of the story."

"Side? You've got it already. I typed it out and gave it to the committee. You would have read it. If you're here then that means you don't believe me. Nobody believes me."

"That's not true."

"Oh yeah? You think I killed them don't you? Like I took a knife and went crazy or something like that. That's much easier to believe than a monster no one's heard of before. You want to know if I killed them? I'll make it easy for you. I did. I let Dallas bring that thing on board. If I'd done my job, everyone would be alive."

Ripley couldn't hold back the tears. They came again after having only just controlled herself before. Her eyes were red and stinging. The pain of her stiff muscles was supposed to recede as her strength came back ,but it followed her around like a bad smell. Her body constantly ached, especially in her chest where she always had to remind herself it was her heart still recovering and not the spined tail of an alien wrapped around it.

Images of all of the crew, especially Dallas paraded in front of her eyes whether they were open or shut. Beneath her fingers she felt the tangle of Dallas's chest hair on the odd times they managed to have sex. It wasn't quite love, but she cared for him nonetheless. She remembered the way his beard would always give her pash rash if they kissed for too long, but Dallas had made a joke of it, pointing out that there were plenty of other places on his person her lips could be used.

She thought of her lips on him when she last saw him alive. Anchored to the wall in a slimy cradle, a prisoner and dying, she gave him release, but she couldn't banish the sight of his face melting in the fire.

She thought of Amy, her dear child who had grown old and died without her. Amy was such a Daddy's girl, but when he ran out it took a long time to build a complete motherly love, made harder by the long trips into space. It broke Ripley's heart to be away for so long, weeks at a time. But this time it had been an entire lifetime. Ripley had killed her too, she reasoned. Amy had died when Dallas and the crew died as well.

Dead to her at least.

Now she was less than alone. She was surrounded by people who thought she was a liar or crazy or both.

Her hands tried to catch her tears, but they ran between her fingers and meandered down her forearms. But a scream escaped her when a pair of orderlies grabbed her arms away and dragged her out of the room. She yelled and fought and cursed and screamed warnings, but they held fast and silent and the psychiatrist already blocked her out, refusing to look at her. The heavy door swung shut with a thundering crash and a small pin prick to her neck signalled the descent into another drug addled sleep filled with blood, death and horror.

XX

"What's the score Doctor? Is she crazy?"

"Yes, I think so. No doubt something happened that she was responsible for, but it's more question of to what degree was it an accident or some premeditated murderous rampage. She shows guilt, but she's confused. The references to this monster are creative I'll have to admit, but it's a manifestation of something within. It could be caused by all sorts of things. It's in her file that her husband ran out on her and this 'Amy' child and being in long trips in space like that don't help matters. Isolation, cabin fever, claustrophobia, conflict, all sorts."

"Is it some sort of stress disorder?"

"Yes, I believe so. I'll prescribe sedatives and dopamine-blockers and we'll monitor her progress. But tell me Burke, do you really care enough to put this woman into a proper program? Even surgery? It's costly, and by no means certain to get useful results."

"No. If you say she's crazy, then that's enough for me. Let me know if anything changes or if you hit a breakthrough, but it looks like this is a bit of a dead end. I'll hand this over to the police to see if they want to book her. I suppose then it's more a question of where she's going to rot. A jail cell or a padded cell."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Panic.

Blind panic.

Rebecca ran through the mess hall dodging up turned tables and chairs, leaping over broken glass and other useless debris. She didn't particularly know where she was going or what she would do if she got there, but she just had to run and hope her brother Timmy could keep up.

The barricade had broken only seconds ago and her mother screamed for her to run. Rebecca didn't need to be told something so primal, even if her mother's voice was drowned out amongst the gunfire and screams.

It had all gone to hell in the passed few days after her and her family discovered that strange alien place passed the mountain range. LV246 was an inhospitable place, home to howling winds and treacherous terrain. Mum and Dad decided it was too good of an opportunity to pass up, the former uncertain and the latter with money in his eyes, and Rebecca and Timmy were forced to come along as a babysitter could not be found back at the complex.

The all terrain vehicles was a sturdy machine and coped well against the harsh winds. But like most times involving sand, no matter how water tight sand always managed to find a way inside. But they were bred tough out here. Only those with a spirit of adventure and hard hands found a way to make a living in the far colonies. But for those that it suited, it made for a potentially profitable life.

The two parents jumped outside and entered the alien structure and Rebecca had waited, glad for the free time to alone to play games with her brother Timmy, but after a while she had grown scared and worried. She would never forget the panic in her mother's eyes as the door was later wrenched open. She saw her father on the ground with a disgusting spider wrapped around his face. They put him down at the back of the vehicle cabin and lay a blanket on him for comfort, but Rebecca couldn't help but scream the entire trip back to base. Mother and even Timmy tried to calm her down, but she couldn't bring herself to stop.

She never saw her father again, nor much more of her mother who stayed with him as much as she possibly could, sobbing like a lost child. The populace was abuzz with the news of the mysterious creature and many were scared.

All too quickly the spider mysteriously disappeared and her father died in an explosion of blood and horror. She wasn't there to see it, but she heard the panicked rumours and the complex police arming themselves. They tried to put in a distress call back to Earth, but a heavy storm prevented the relay dish from aligning and this no signal was ever sent

One by one people went missing, some mysteriously and some in view of the others. Silent, fast and devilish, monsters appeared from nowhere without warning. Silver black dragons that moved in silence and attacked like the most cunning of predators stole people away, moving with unseen speed like lizards scurrying away into the smallest nooks with prey in tow. They ruled the dark and were excruciatingly hard to kill with the small firearms they had on hand.

The colonists retreated back to the private quarters and set up a last ditch barricade at the end of a long hall. The few men and women that were left that knew how to handle the paltry and few guns they had stood with fear swirling through their bellies like rabid tapeworms. Funnelled down the long corridor the creatures charged like a swarm of insects and many fell before the ensuing gun fire.

Acid flew and burned, both the battleground as well as the fighters behind the barricade of furniture and steel plating. And when the first of the defenders fell in a burning scream, the resolve broke and the deadly locusts ran amok.

Rebecca's heart was racing and her ears were deaf to everything except her own gasping breaths. She cleared the mess hall and veered into the control room. She saw familiar faces, all as scared as she was and screaming. She saw Jerry, one of the comms crew fruitlessly shouting at the computer station used for the relay dish, but she paid him no further mind. She had to keep running.

Walls, pipes, chairs, people all flashed by as she hopped and ran. She turned a corner and crashed into someone, sending them both sprawling onto the floor.

"Get out of my way!"

She didn't who it was, but the person was on top of her. It was a man, squashing and slapping her as he tried to untangle himself and get back up.

Suddenly the weight was relieved and Rebecca chanced to open her eyes, but immediately clasped the shut and screamed in terror. She saw one of those monsters on the ceiling grappling with the man who flailed wildly. Like a lizard, it scurried along the ceiling and disappeared into a recess in the ceiling along with the dying man.

Sporadic gun fire echoed through the halls, but was quickly being drowned out by the screams of her terrified friends and family and the screeching of the unholy monsters.

Like a frightened turtle, she drew her arms and legs in on herself and tried to curl up into an invisible ball. She tried to wish it all away like a bad dream, to pretend that none of it was real and she was not about to die.

"Mommy!" She cried.

"Becca!"

A hand grabbed her shoulder and she was awake again. She knew that grip and the way it bit into her skin between her bones. It was not frightening, but her brother she knew and she was instantly back on her feet and running.

"Becca, I dunno what to do!"

She saw her brother's terrified eyes and knew that even though he was the older one, she would have to take charge. If they didn't they would die. They had both seen friends suddenly snatched away or torn to pieces and the fear gave fuel to their legs once more. Rebecca glanced over her shoulder and saw two of the monsters slithering along the ceiling towards them. One of them veered off when a young boy stumbled outside crying and it pounced on him like a grotesque tiger.

The remaining monster kept it's bead on them, closing fast.

"There!"

Rebecca saw a vent below the grated floor and her mind came alive. She had played numerous games in the maze of vents and tunnels all throughout the complex and knew them better than anyone. Maybe if she kept her head straight, she would be able to guide them both somewhere safe.

"You go first!"

Timmy shoved Rebecca forward and watched her slither inside like a snake. It was dark inside and barely wide enough for her to look back over her shoulder and see Timmy follow in behind.

"Come on, Timmy! I know where to go!"

"BECCA!"

She turned and looked again and saw her brother's terrified face for the briefest instant before he was pulled away. Her wrenched heart screamed at her to help, but terror won out and she left him. She knew what had happened and cried and screamed and crawled blindly, even if a distant part of her instinctual mind knew exactly where she was going.

She heard him screaming, his high pitched voice echoing through the steel plated tunnels.

"Becca! Mommy! Mo-"

Suddenly it stopped, but Rebecca scrambled on through the maze, switching left and right before finally tumbling through an opening and into a small enclosed chamber. She sat in the corner, cradling her knees to her chest and sobbed. Scrapes on her kneecaps bled into her fingers, but she was oblivious to the pain. She wanted to scream out and cry, like a lost little baby amongst the wolves. She wanted her mother, but the same instinct that forced her to crawl on as Timmy was taken told her that her mother was most likely dead.

Scratching and bumping sounds meandered all around her, and she could swear she could hear muffled voices trying to scream out. An enclosed steel air vent that crossed the bottom of the chamber buckled as something within quickly sped by.

Letting the tears fall freely, she did her best to keep quiet and sat frozen for a long time after the last noise died away. She closed her eyes and tried not to imagine what was currently happening to her family.

xx

Cold, alone and emaciated, Ripley sat on the floor as her arms chafed in the straight jacket. She desperately wanted her hands released just so she could feel cool air on them, however stale and filtered, but they instead wallowed in sweat and unwashed poly-canvas. It made her think of Dallas over and over again, stuck in the beast's lair. She was stuck in a padded cell of a metal hospital.

Drugs seemed to course through her system day and night without pause. They rode a current of intensity, administered when she was supposed to eat, but she never had any appetite. They also left her crushingly tired, but try as she might sleep would not come without the dreams of giving birth to that monster again.

Even thinking about it again now, she felt hot and flushed, made worse by the stifling fabric of the straight jacket that refused to let any fresh air touch her cloyed skin.

She never saw that psychiatrist again, nor Burke and quickly concluded upon her transportation to the facility she now resided to be a vote of no confidence on their part. They did not believe her and had abandoned her. They wanted her to just disappear.

In a way it helped because it replaced sadness and fear with anger and bestowed some conviction. At least temporarily it gave her some drive to overcome her banishment, but it soon gave way to resignation as others took their place feigning belief and interest, including the police.

That was the nail in the coffin. She was up for murder and destruction of property. At least technically she had confessed to the latter, but of course they did not believe her reasons, and she doubted they would agree even if they did. All throughout the meetings and committees that discussed her story, they mentioned the loss of the ship and the iron more than the loss of the crew.

They were accountants, lawyers and judges and her story was too fantastic.

There was no hope.

They looked at her with a mixture of distaste and curiosity. They hated the 'crimes' she was held responsible for, but seemed amused at her story.

She recounted it all truthfully and in detail. It was difficult and she broke down in tears numerous times as she remembered her friends and the terrifying ordeal. Finally, she told of flushing the monster into space, concluding her story that had taken over an hour to retell completely.

She closed her eyes to try and stifle the tears and opened them again to find the committee head, a fat man with a face pockmarked with pimple scars lift an eyebrow and mutter "Indeed."

And with that, they concluded their findings and revoked any status her previous life may have held. No longer an officer, ineligible for employment or socials security. Freedom was taken away in the name of her own 'personal safety', so they stipulated.

Ripley screamed at them, calling them foolish. They of course brushed her off.

A light buzzed overhead, protected behind steel mesh it was annoying at first, but soon joined the myriad of noises that filtered through the padded walls day and night. Screams seemed to come at all hours and from a variety of sources. Some were screams of anguish, some maniacal pleasure. Some, she was sure, came from the staff.

She received no overt kindness from them. The doctors were curt, but polite and the orderlies were firm, but not abusive. It was as though everyone functioned like automatons, going about their assigned tasks and no more. No cheerfulness, but no opportunistic sadism either.

She saw early on how they treated patients who were violent or resisted. The orderlies were not above cracking skulls or breaking bones, and the doctors seemed to have syringes of sedatives hidden up their sleeves like magicians.

And so she co-operated as best she could. After all, it was not their fault she was here. She saved her hatred for Burke. She remembered initially waking from her coma and instantly distrusting him.

_It's OK. I'm really an OK guy._

The anger helped deflect the nightmares after a time. Night after night she dreamed of the bloody birth through her ribcage and heard the screams of her baby girl Amy as the alien ran amok and tore her to pieces. But soon, she dreamed it was Burke and not Amy and was glad when the facehugger wrapped itself around her. She was giving birth to revenge, looked forward to it and felt no pain in her dreams as her chest broke open. Her ribs were a placenta, her blood the womb's waters and the screech of the alien wriggling free the cry of her newborn baby.

_It's OK. I'm really an OK guy._

She heard footsteps out of rhythm with the normal noises of the day and the angry thoughts were banished. As she guessed, the footsteps grew louder until they stopped outside her door. They were the heavy clink-clap of Dr Morson's steel capped shoes. Another followed in behind it in kind, softer and more skittish. Uneven and nervous, but Dr Morson's were regular and heavy. Relaxed and not shy of the noise they made.

A sharp buzz resounded and the heavy steel door opened smoothly outward to reveal the Doctor and his guest, but he was hidden. His stature, shorter than the lanky Morson shrank in behind like a shy child with his face concealed from view.

Dr Morson smiled, condescending and perturbed down at Ripley who sat cross-legged in the corner of the room waiting patiently. Ripley was his best behaved patient. Ripley was never sure whether he liked that or not. Wether he appreciated the good behaviour or viewed her as a piece of plyboard to break in half.

"Ellen, there's someone important here to see you. Will you receive him?"

"Yes." Ripley croaked, her throat dry from the sedatives and lack of use. She gave Morson the most minimal of answers to his questions and she certainly did not talk to herself in her cell like many of the other patients did.

Morson gave Ripley a threatening flash of his eyes before turning to reveal her visitor.

Wearing almost exactly the same clothes, but none of his usual casualness and surety, Burke peeked through the harsh buzzing light and saw his 'dead end'.

It was all Ripley could do to not leap forward and attempt to bite his teeth out. Like her baby, fangs glistening and longing, bared and sharp. Instead she sat and stared daggers at him.

Ripley's lips were dry and cracked, but Burke's were soaked with nervous sweat. His suit jacket was stifling and the fringe of his curly hair was dark and clung to his clammy skin.

Ripley smiled. She guessed why he was here and the anger subsided, replaced with a sad smugness.

He spoke, his voice thin and wavering, "Ripley. Um… I think I need to talk to you."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

"Ripley, we have to talk. We've lost contact with LV426."

Ripley sat in her chair looking at Burke shiver through the plexiglass. His voice was filtered through a speaker, but she could still hear his nervousness and trepidation. Her room was self contained and in light of the visit her strait jacket was removed. It felt good to feel the sweat that had lately settled into the fine hairs on her arms dissolve away in the air conditioning. It was almost sensual, as though she now sat in front of Burke naked and in control of the confrontation.

But she still wore the regulation white pants and singlet, somewhat besmudged with grime and sweat.

"What exactly do you think has happened? Who's on that planet now?"

Burke shifted in his chair and lay his hands on the bench in front of him. "Weiland Yutani funded a colony a while back. About 5 years or so. They thought the planet might have some use as a mining facility. The colony station acts as a feasibility study more or less."

"How many people are there?"

"Not 100% sure, but there's at least 200 people, including staff and their families."

"Families." Ripley's distaste for Burke flittered away. This was no longer about getting back at him. The possibility that a monster might be running wild in a place with women and children left her with a cold feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach. She thought of Amy and shivered.

"Yeah. They were supposed to call in a couple of days ago, but they didn't. That's not usually a big deal because the weather there is rough and can mess around with the main dish. Sometimes they can't get a proper signal. But they have a pulse signal that comes through something like 100 times per day. It's like a dead man switch. For it to function someone has to be on duty and that signal is more basic. It doesn't need a dish. A storm wouldn't interfere with that signal being sent. But when it stopped three days ago, a little red flag went up."

"A little red flag?" Ripley replied absently, lost in thought. She saw Amy's head being bitten through, brain spilling onto the floor.

"Uh, yes."

"Yes." Amy's spine was snapped in two and her intestines flopped out like dead snakes.

"Are you alright?"

The clank of a heavy door closing interrupted the stunted conversation and a man in a pleated khaki green uniform stepped forward to Burke's side. Burke smiled and was relieved to be able to turn away from Ripley. They shook hands and the new man sat down next to him.

"Ripley, this is Lt. Gorman of the Colonial Marine Corps."

"Ma'am."

Ripley studied him for a moment. His closely cropped hair was the stereotype army cut and it fleetingly reminded her of the smooth shining head of the alien. He looked back at her with more conviction than Burke did, but his eyes were soft enough to convey some humility. Burke looked away, shuffling with his pockets, but Gorman continued to meet Ripley's eyes.

"Why is he here?" Ripley asked Burke without taking her eyes of Gorman's.

"Well, we don't know what's going on out there. This pulse signal thing may still be because of some mechanical fault. Ok? But if it's not, Gorman and his team are going to go there and investigate."

"Oh." Ripley replied absently.

Gorman blinked, cutting short the challenge and spoke with an even voice. "I take it Mr Burke has given you a quick briefing on the issue. Let me assure you, if something has happened there, my men and I will be able to take care of it. We've been trained for this sort of thing."

This mustered Burke's confidence. "That's right. They're packing state of the art firepower. They're disciplined. There's nothing they can't handle. I'm going with them to oversee them, but I have absolute confidence in them."

"Oh?" Ripley said again pointlessly.

Burke paused, licking his teeth nervously, and Gorman interjected. "Mr Burke is here to request that you come to."

"No." Ripley replied.

Gorman drew breath to use firmer language, but Burke spoke first. "Look Ripley, I'm sorry for what's happened to you. I'm sorry they didn't believe you. But I'm here to make things right. I've got full approval to erase every mark against your name and get you out of here. They'll even pay you a large fee."

"If I go." Ripley replied tersely.

"Yeah."

Ripley gestured towards Gorman who sat with his arms crossed. "Well, you've got my story. If your marine super soldiers are as capable as you say, why do you need me?"

"Well, like I said, we don't' know what's happened out there. It may be something innocent and some guy needs to get fired for negligence or something. OK? But if it's not, I would like you there as an advisor and that's all. It would just give some extra comfort that everything will be OK whatever has happened."

"So let me just get this straight. Just after I get thrown in this shit hole and my career and my freedom gets butt fucked, this colony suddenly goes down the shitter and you want my help? Do you know what I've been going through in here? I'm surrounded by crazy shits who scream day and night and I don't even know if my creepy good doctor thinks I'm a model citizen or is planning to fuck me up."

"Ripley-"

"You've still not get your head around it. I still can't sleep. I'm fucked in the head, I'm still scared. I only found out about Amy a week ago and my Jonesy cat has been taken away from me. That thing killed all of my crew, all of my friends and you want to throw me back into the ring with it?"

Gorman leaned forward, " Ellen."

"Shut the fuck up!" Ripley shouted at him. "I'm not going. You let me outta here now."

"Um." Burke mumbled and shrunk back into his chair.

Ripley realised where this was going. She didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "Oh I get it now. I have to, is that it? If I don't, you leave me here." Ripley's nostrils flared.

"Well, if you don't co-operate, there's no reason to help you. We can't help you unless you help us." Burke said churlishly.

Ripley stared at him for a moment, silently promising death through the plexiglass window. "You go without me, Burke. I hope they fucking tear you up, because I'll tell you. Sergeant faggot can have all the guns he wants. If that colony is overrun with those things, you're fucked. Me and my crew could barely handle only one of those things. How are you gonna deal with 200?"

"Ripley-." Burke stammered.

"No." Ripley stood up and walked to the door. "Interview is over. I'm done. I would rather stay here than go back."

Xx

Art class was about the only activity during the day where Ripley could vent her fears, through her fingers, down the wooden stick to the bristles and finally onto paper. It was cathartic.

At first it was cumbersome. She was never an artistic person. She worked with machinery, computers and numbers. Nevertheless, she was the sort of person who could think with her hands and soon showed progress. From crude shapes that looked as though they belonged on a kindergarten window, she could create discernable scenes that reflected her state of mind.

She often recreated atmospheres and memories from the Nostromo. It was the entire point of the exercise, as prescribed by Dr Morson. He always told his patients that the brush stroke never lied.

Ripley closed her eyes, and remembered the claustrophobia of the Nostromo's many corridors. Pipes intermingled with panels and vents like veins supplying blood to organs and tissue. It was a living, breathing animal.

She liked the idea of capturing her role and that of the alien as the Nostromo's immune system versus a free radical. She was a white blood cell. The alien a virus. An angry, sneaky ball of pus.

The Nostromo however had died. Overcome by the parasite, she was caste adrift to safety. She thought it funny to think of the life boat as a piece of shit, expelled in the moments before death. But the monster's infection had spread even to there where the last stand off left her the winner.

A winner of sorts.

If her journey on the lifeboat was a piece of shit, then this was the toilet bowl, she supposed. She took a break and surveyed the room. The other patients came from a variety of mental pathologies. Most were untreatable schizophrenics that had committed a multitude of crimes. Rape, torture, murder. The most foul of the human race.

A sickly young man sat next to her, chained to his chair and cradling a paint brush before him. He had not even dipped it into the paint or touched the paper, rather studied it as though wondering what it was for. He turned and looked at her, feeling her eyes on him.

He repulsed her, but she was also strangely curious. She didn't know exactly what he had done to merit his presence in the hospital, but she guessed by his lurid grin and thin stature he was a rapist.

"I am, you know."

"What?" Ripley replied, confused.

He turned and began to gently run the dry brush against the paper canvas, making circles and spirals. "I was never a popular lad a school. I got teased a lot. They said I was a freak."

Ripley set her brush down and listened.

He continued, relaxed and casual.

"I'm no freak. I'm normal. People think the concept of 'normal' is as a consequence of relativity. If one person out of a hundred has long hair and the other 99 have short hair, what is normal? Which of the two groups is normal? Hm?"

"Um, the ones with the short hair." Ripley replied uncertainly.

"See?" He smiled and turned to dip his brush into some paint for the first time. "You are just like everyone else. Just because I loved my sister, and everyone thinks that's the wrong thing to do, I am not normal. I loved her like nobody else. She was my sweetheart. Rest her soul."

"What happened to her?"

"Well." He swirled his brush around the paint pot. "She was amongst the latter crowd. She did not understand. I tried to make her see. But she took her own life to stop me from loving her anymore."

He pulled his brush out, thick with red paint that clumped the bristles together and stabbed it hard onto the canvas. The paper tore, but the canvas and the easel held firm.

Ripley turned back to her own picture and tried to ignore the cold shiver than ran up her spine. She suddenly felt the urge to urinate.

"I like your drawing." He said.

Ripley tried her best to ignore him.

"I think you draw a lot like me. We think the same."

Ripley surveyed her incomplete picture properly for the first time. Often she painted staring at it but not seeing. Her unconscious mind did most of the work and often she did not behold it until it was complete.

Her current project was dark and disturbed, much like her usual work. Blacks and greys swirled together in seemingly incoherent forms, but Ripley knew exactly in the mix where the monster lurked.

"He's in there isn't he? Your monster." He said.

Ripley stared at him. She wanted to leave. She face was flushed and hot.

"I know who your monster is. I know where he is. He's inside you isn't he? Wrapped around your heart." He licked his lips and dipped his brush back into the red paint pot. "He wants to come out doesn't he?"

"Shut up." She couldn't breath. She couldn't see anything except the picture before her becoming real, swallowing up everything in her eyes and thrusting her back into the bowels of the Nostromo.

"He's there. In the shadows. He wants you. He misses you." His voice hissed like a snake, coming from nowhere.

"No."

"He wants you."

"No.

"Do you see him?"

"N-no."

"He's there. Can you feel him?"

"No. I don't want to."

Steam hissed from below and swallowed her up in a fog. A distant scream that sounded like Parker's gruff voice echoed from all sides and died away in a drowning gurgle.

"Inside. He's inside you. He wants to come out. He's been inside you all this time."

She ran blindly, anywhere to escape the dream. She knew it was a fantasy, but it felt so _real_.

_Why can't I wake up?_

"Because you want to be here."

"No! Amy! Jonesy!"

"Turn around."

She about-faced and saw crystal teeth glistening in the faded light. They parted and rushed at her.

She screamed and thrashed in a terrified panic. Hands and talons dug into her from all sides.

"Ripley!"

"Wake up."

A piercing white light tore through the din. A clean white ceiling presented itself and the faces of the hospital orderlies hovered over her. Her heart was racing and she felt the sting of tears in her eyes.

"It's alright."

A shrill laughter caused her to jolt in the firm hands of the strong orderlies. It was the patient that sat next to her. He howled maniacally as though in the midst of the purest ecstasy. He was being dragged from the room as Dr Morson stepped in, angry and shouting.

"Get him out of here!"

The hands pinning Ripley down relaxed as she calmed down, but her heart still felt ready to explode in her ears. An acrid taste danced on her tongue. A last reminder of the Nostromo's dark maze. It was her fear. She wanted to vomit.

"I'm OK." She gasped.

The orderlies helped her up and sat her down on her stool. She wiped her nose and controlled her breathing.

"What is that?"

She opened her eyes and saw her canvas. No longer a blur, it was the sharpest and most detailed scene and caused her to fall off the stool, terrified and screaming. The orderlies tried to hold her down, but she was too strong, lost in the grip of horror. Dr Morson rushed over and stabbed a small needle in her arm and she quickly fell into unconsciousness. But even as her eyes closed, she continued to mumble.

"It's here. It's here."

Morson ordered her back to her room and quietened the remaining patients down. They all stared with a mixture of morbid fascination and revulsion at Ripley's painting. Dr Morson absently stepped back dumbly and found himself backed up all the way to the wall.

They all stared aghast.

They all stared at the most evil and frightening thing they had ever seen.

Xx

"Hello, Mr Burke?"

"Yeah? Oh, Dr Morson. How are you?"

"I'm….. fine. Listen. Ripley. It's about Ripley. She wanted me to tell you something."

"Yeah? What's happened?"

"It appears she's had a change of heart. She wanted me to tell you in these exact words. 'I will come only on the condition that we destroy every single one of them. No prisoners. No specimens for study. We fucking kill them.' That's it."

"She said that?"

"Yes. Word for word. Including the 'fucking' bit too. I don't like swearing like that."

"Oh."

"What should I tell her?"

"Um….. Tell her I'll come pick her up tomorrow morning. Can you arrange for her discharge?"

"Mr Burke. I like to have as many patients in my hospital as possible. Despite the fact I get more funding, I genuinely want to help them. I want to cure them."

"Oh? What about Ripley?"

Dr Morson cleared his throat before replying. "I want her out of my fucking hospital."


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

"This way."

Lt Gorman walked confidently, guiding Ripley and Burke up the ship's ramp and into the cargo hold. He expected Ripley to be nervous and on edge walking into the cramped unfamiliar place. Her file indicated phobias about small places and the dark. It was a pleasant surprise however to see her strut up the walkway, almost leaving Burke behind who seemed the most uncertain of the two.

"You're eager." He said light heartedly. "I was expecting you to feel a little more nervous. Especially to be inside a ship again and given where we are going."

She stopped and looked at him and it struck her then that indeed she was not scared. She looked around the ship's interior and could see just how different it was to the Nostromo. Her ship was dirty, dark and civilian. This place was lit by harsh light, Spartan and devoid of luxury.

"I like the ambiance." She said.

"Good to hear." Gorman said cheerfully and led the way once more.

The majority of the ship was not visible inside the hanger. Most of the ship was obscured by the docking station. She saw a schematic of it on a vid screen and an overview of its dimensions. Overall, it was actually a fair deal smaller than her Nostromo, but it still appeared enormous. A passenger liner in a past life, it had been converted into a military troop transport. Looking around, she could see where particular fittings designed for opulence and convenience had either been removed or converted. Where a bulkhead would have housed a series of couches, it now was a storage rack for various items of equipment she did not recognise.

A small kitchenette with a bar no longer had the beer and spirit taps, and the bar fridges that would have held wine and other alcohol held nothing so desirable. She could even see one place where an advertising billboard would have once lived.

Nonetheless, she felt comfortable and excited. The fear and anger that coursed through her veins after the incident at the art class seemed a million miles away. She guessed that had a lot to do with a distinct absence of medication in her veins. Her head was clear and sharp for the first time all week.

She felt alive again. She hoped she could stay that way.

"This way, please. The stasis tubes are just through here. The detachment have already prepared and entered cryosleep."

The dim hallway opened up to reveal a locker room. Neat and tidy apart from stickers that dotted the locker doors, it smelled clean. Actually, it smelled overly clean. A further examination found the smell of sweat had partially been covered over with air freshener and de-oderiser. It reminded her of field trips to the sports ground at school when she was a little girl. It also reminded her of when Amy did the same.

"Your locker is over there. 32. Burke, yours is 33."

"Hm," Ripley stepped over to inspect them. "Hey Burke. Mine's above yours. My locker's better." She joked and followed Gorman as he continued the tour.

Burke fumbled a reply of no discernable words and ran to keep up.

"There are the tubes. They're a bit more advanced since your day. You'll find they're less taxing on your body and in all likelihood, more comfortable as well. Also, these ones are higher end. Not made in China. They have a longer life."

Ripley smiled, "Lt Gorman, I personally have a deep respect for the Chinese manufacturing industry. If I recall correctly, my stasis pod back on the life boat worked non-stop for 57 years."

Gorman smiled, "So the warranty on that one's been and gone long ago. Eh?"

"That's right." Ripley smiled back.

"So these are the troops?" Burke said killing the brevity.

"Yes." Gorman replied.

Ripley and Burke stepped forward to see. Ripley started from the left end, and Burke from the right. They both peered inside with a strange fascination, like perusing items on a shelf they could not afford.

Cradled in the tubes like babes in the womb, Ripley found it hard to find any distinguishing features on them. Her old tube always had a small issue with condensation on the glass, but these ones definitely were better quality. These were crystal clear.

She walked down the line, glancing at the names.

Frost

Dietrich

Drake

Crowe

Hicks

Spunkmeyer

Ferro

Hudson

Vasquez

Wierbowski

Apone

Burke had been doing the same and the two of them almost bumped into each other. Burke decided he'd had enough and left to get changed.

Ripley continued down the line before eventually reaching the end. In all there were eleven of them. They seemed so few and yet so many. She felt sorry for them. She wondered with all her heart whether she had just walked an inspection or a funeral procession.

She tried to convince herself it was the former, but a niggling feeling tied her stomach into knots even as she dressed and climbed into her tube with the rest of them. It took a moment longer to fall asleep than she expected. She found herself constantly scratching her hip, expecting it to be brushed by itchy cat whiskers. But of course, the owner of said whiskers was not with her and would soon be millions of miles away.

Xx

She had no idea what time it was, but the confines of her new home allowed no basis of reference to tell without a clock. The clock on her wrist watch was broken. Her mother had given it to her on her birthday two years ago. She did not throw it away.

It had taken a long time before nerves settled and fear gave way to the more important and mundane stimuli. Finally, her stomach decided to remind her she was thirsty and hungry, but her imagination gave her many reasons to continue hiding in her corner for longer yet.

She replayed the previous day's horrible attack over and over and stinging tears came many times and wracked her body with uncontrollable sobs. She thought of the times that had been a happy family, going out for walks and playing together. They always held hands in the same way. Father, mother, Timmy then Rebecca. In order of age and height.

And in that order they had also died.

At least she guessed so. Her mother had been at the barricade with the rest of the fighters, whilst Timmy was with her. It may have only been seconds the difference, but nonetheless, she held no doubt her mother was dead and Timmy came a close second.

Shadows danced overhead as a ceiling fan span round and round, but as the hours passed, she noticed that the fan slowed down to nearly a stop. She supposed that the regulators were either broken or diverting power to something more important.

She wasn't entirely sure what to do next, but she knew well enough she couldn't just stay where she was. She could hear her mother and father's voices telling her to be brave, but it was difficult. She depended more on her brother to help her when she was scared. When she was younger when they first came to the colony, she was scared of the dark. Timmy had the idea of playing in the venting system and her fear promptly gave way to fun and games. She grew to love crawling around the maze of ducts and tunnels. She quickly became the best at it. Without a sense of claustrophobia and a newly banished fear of the dark, she was always game for squeezing into areas other kids were too scared of.

She absently fingered a scar on her left thigh as a reminder of her talent. It was a mark of infamy about how she had once climbed into the garbage disposal chute. The mulcher at the bottom of the chute would have killed her had she not the presence of mind to grab a jutting piece of steel that cut into her leg on the way down.

Whenever she felt scared or down, she played with the tangle of lumpy flesh on her leg and it reminded her she was strong. That there was something she was better at than anyone else. For all she knew, it was this talent that meant she was now the only person alive on the planet. She had even evaded those creatures.

She decided now that she would need to do so again.

Slowly, but silently she crawled back the way she came towards the living quarters. The same duct she had crawled into and Timmy had been pulled out of seemed so innocuous now. Everything was so quiet. Normally the ducts vibrated and air whooshed through them like a heart beat. Instead, all she could hear was her own and her thin breaths.

She neared the duct's opening and slowly found the nerve to poke her head through. It was dark, but everything was still discernible. She expected to see something that would scare her witless and send her scurrying back where she came. Instead she saw nothing unusual at all and she wasn't sure whether that was in fact scarier in some way.

She expected to see blood and dead bodies, even dead monsters, but there was nobody around at all. They only sign that something untoward had happened was a torch that lay alone and still shining down the walkway on her left.

Otherwise, it was as quiet and still as a tomb and she had a terrible time convincing herself to emerge fully and explore. She felt like those times every child had in their bedroom when horrible monsters threatened to emerge from the closet. As was always common in such instances, the only absolute way to ensure survival was to cover up any bare body part of skin beneath the blanket.

It was a childish idea, but she felt the same way now about the duct. How was she to know there wasn't one of those unseen monsters hiding somewhere, watching her even now, just waiting for her to come out?

_You can do it._ She heard Timmy say.

Slowly and silently, she careful crawled out. The air was cold and made her feel deathly vulnerable as it touched her sweaty and grimy skin. Her heart was racing and her eyes darted in all directions, inspecting every shadow. She sat still, waiting for some signal she was not alone and squatted on her feet, ready to run if she so needed. But soon her toes were on fire with pins and needles and nothing had moved.

Slowly then, she emerged from underneath the floor and crept across the hallway. A door was open to someone's bedroom. She didn't know whose it was and didn't think to read the plaque above the threshold.

Checking left and right still, she crept inside with absolute silence and scanned the area.

Nothing appeared untoward. If anything it was still neat. A pair of jeans lay on the back of a desk chair and a T-shirt and jacket lay folded neatly at the foot of the undisturbed bed. The bedroom, like many others had little in the way of decoration, but it still felt quite homely.

On her right was a computer desk with a laptop plugged into the wall. Next to it was a packet of crisps and an unfinished coffee. She sniffed, hoping to detect the slight aroma of the coffee beans, but instead smelled cold blood. She couldn't see blood anywhere, but she could still smell it.

All the same, she was hungry enough to ignore it and moved for the crisp packet. Her fingers clasped the foil and it crinkled loudly in the silence.

It was the loudest noise she had ever heard in her life and without thinking she ran back to the duct and scurried back to her lair like a frightened mouse. Crying and spluttering, she hugged her knees to her chest and ran her finger along her leg scar once more, looking for courage.

She wanted her family, wanted to hear her brother to tell her it would be alright and feel the softness of her mother's arms around her. She wanted her father to stand guard and hold the monsters at bay.

There was no way to know how much time had passed, but she finally passed out from exhaustion and slept fitfully in her filthy corner.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

The transition from sleep to wakefulness is often not a period of time which the conscious mind is particularly functional. As neurons that lay dormant or tepid fire back to life again, it can take some time before they are aware that they are connected to many others like them. Sometimes, electrical pulses catch them still yawning and scratching their bellies and the resulting thought can be lost or clouded.

Thankfully, places like the cerebellum compensate to ensure enough degree of awareness to force the eyelids open, the heart rate to increase and the lungs to pull open. They also send down a disconcerting urgency to the bladder should any of the former actions fail to properly awaken the sleeper.

And so she woke, faintly cognisant of the whine of hydraulics and the hum of machinery. Purified air rushed into her nostrils and down into her lungs like frightened moles burrowing into the ground. It was cold and a sudden rush of warming blood pulsed through the millions of capillaries and vessels to compensate.

Fingers made cold from inactivity experienced a dull pain from lifeblood returning, dancing in a swamp of pins and needles.

The sleeper wanted to ignore it and continue to slumber, but the bladder called and so the body finally relented and rose stiffly.

"Ugh."

The sleeper heard a voice next to her. A gravelly and course cough from a man. Others like it echoed from elsewhere.

Ripley opened her eyes and blinked slowly numerous times to dispel the sensation that she no longer had eyes, but instead inert golf balls. Colours danced as she rubbed them and her hair felt oily and tangled through her fingers.

"They ain't payin' us enough for this mess."

"Not enough for us to wake up to your face, Drake."

"What? Was that a joke?"

"Wish it were."

"You mean 'was'.

"What?"

"'Was.' You're grammar's fucked."

"Suck my dick, Drake."

"You ain't got one, Dietrich."

"You mean 'you haven't got one.' You're grammar's fucked, Drake."

"Suck my dick, Dietrich."  
Ripley listened to the banter and was both sad and uncomfortable. Sad because it reminded her of her crew who said similar things both in jest and frustration. Uncomfortable to think that she was not surrounded by ordinary people. These were marines. Trained killers.

She wondered how many of them had in fact killed someone before.

Her head felt heavy and her spine stiff, but she pulled herself out of the sleeping tube and stepped onto the floor. She winced. As numb and rubbery as her bare feet were, they still let her know how cold the floor was. It was also a little wet from condensation.

She ignored it as best she could. She wanted to get away from the soldiers. She wanted her clothes and some private space. She needed something familiar to calm her down. Her cheeks were hot and flushed and she was on edge.

She went to the toilets, thankfully segregated into male and female unlike the locker room and sat down in a stall and locked the door.

It was even colder here, but at least it was quiet as she sat down to pee. But not for long. One of whom she guessed was Dietrich sauntered in talking to another.

"He said that, did he?"

"Yeah."

"Leave him to me, babe. I'll teach him to mind his manners when he's amongst the fairer gender."

"Fairer my ass, Vas. You're tanned and beautiful. He's pale and freckled. I bet on the beach he burns while you go gold."

"Yeah he does. That's why we don't do it on the beach."

"Ugh, Vas. I just vomited a little in my mouth."

Ripley listened and pretended to be a mouse. They continued to talk crudely and left. Ripley waited until it was quiet again and went about getting changed into the blue boiler suit she took with her.

Eventually she emerged and found the locker room busy. Half naked bodies writhed in and out of clothes like a great snake as they laughed, told jokes and continued on with their crude banter. Ripley needed to get her hair brush from her locker, but she was hesitant to enter the soldiers' domain and thus decided to leave it tangled and rough.

Some of them saw her and stared at her, both out of mild fascination and a bullying playfulness.

She was a civilian. A soft outcast with a rubber trigger finger.

It was thusly no surprise to find that Burke was nowhere to be seen.

More of the marines were staring at her, smiling luridly. The one called Drake did so too, but a golden skinned women, short and thick with muscle slapped him on the back of his head and chastised him in what sounded like course Spanish. Ripley guessed it was the one from the toilets with Dietrich.

Some of the others laughed amongst themselves and jeered in an almost incomprehensible series of grunts and guffaws until a man stepped forward and shouted at the group. He stood straighter than the others and moved with more surety. Besides one other, he was the only black man and also looked the oldest.

"Hey! Get your shit suited and move your ass to the mess. This ain't no kindergarten trip."

Ripley flinched at the man's booming voice, but whilst many of the soldiers also recoiled, they did so mildly and appeared used to it. "Sorry, Sarge." One of them mocked submissively, speaking overly slowly like a dumb child.

"Hudson, spill your soft white ass into your shit and move your shit on the double. You don't get to the table first, you ain't getting' fed!"

The marine in question suddenly started dressing a lot faster and the others moved with an amused urgency. It was suddenly a competition and some of them went about performing crude acrobatics to almost literally jump into their suits. They laughed and teased the one called Hudson, but he somehow managed to stumble out towards the mess hall and pull up the main zip at the same time without tripping over.

Ripley found herself staring at the large black leader as the remaining marines followed in kind towards the mess hall. The man turned and smiled at her warmly.

"I'm sorry. I haven't introduced myself. I'm Sergeant Apone."

He extended his hand and Ripley grasped it in a handshake. His grip was firm, but comfortable. It was not as she expected.

"Ripley."

"Sorry for my squad's behaviour, ma'am. That one, Hudson, he's the class clown."

"Please, call me Ripley."

"Of course, ma'am."

Ripley smiled uncomfortably and turned for the mess hall. She knew he was trying to be nice, but the sheer size of the man and his dark complexion reminded her of Parker from the Nostromo. She hated constantly remembering finding him crouched on the floor, torn apart after fighting the alien. His death and Lambert's had marked the time when she was alone on that ship with only Jonesy and the alien hiding somewhere in the shadows.

She remembered the fear and panic, but swallowed it down as she heard the ruckus from the mess hall echo towards her down the short hallway.

The mess hall was long room, open and clinically clean. Or at least it used to be beforehand. Dark bodies sauntered back and forth between the central table and the kitchenette. At once the almost caustic staleness of the air was broken by the warm smell of food, both appetising and artificial.

Low and enthused voices coagulated into a somewhat raucous mush of testosterone and camaraderie. The soldiers laughed and shouted amongst themselves. Ripley saw them as soldiers as much as braying monkeys, scratching each other and screeching as though locked in a more primal social intercourse. Whether she thought of the soldiers as animals or killers did not particularly matter. In both cases she wanted to stay away from them and hesitated in the doorway.

She suddenly felt like the tension of the locker room would return and that they would stare and jeer. It reminded her of the darker days of school life, when one of the younger children entered the den of the senior students, much to their depraved amusement.

But it seemed no danger as the soldiers delighted in immersing themselves in their shared world around the dinner plate. They didn't let anything get in the way of their food. Laughter matched with the crash and tinkle of cutlery to form a crude tuneless music.

A waving hand at the far end of the table caught her eye and she saw Gorman, Burke and another man she did not recognise sitting at a separate table with a much more civilised decorum. Ripley gladly walked towards them, ignoring the noisy soldiers as she walked by even if they momentarily ignored her also.

Quickly she reached the relative sanctuary of the senior table and sat down next to Burke as he smiled awkwardly.

"Sleep well?" Burke asked to break the thin ice.

"Well enough." As much as she disliked him, Ripley was glad to sit with him and away from the marines.

"Ripley, I'd like to introduce you to Bishop. He's the chief science officer."

Ripley regarded him and was immediately struck by the man's sickly and thin appearance, made most obvious by his prominent cheekbones and pale skin. His eyes were a piercing blue, but returned her analysis with warmth she found both comforting and suspicious.

"Pleased to meet you." He said with a low gravelly voice. He extended a hand to Ripley, which she gripped securely.

"And you. Bishop is just a surname I take it?"

Bishop smiled, his eyes creasing amidst a tangle of crow's feet and other weathered marks. "Yes. The marines have always wondered what my first name is and have a running bet on it, so you'll have to forgive me if I don't tell you. I'd hate for the little game to end."

Burke busied himself eating a bowl of wheat flakes as Gorman re-entered the conversation. "I hope the soldiers weren't too unaccommodating or in-your-face. It can take a little while to earn their respect."

"Do they have yours?" Ripley asked.

Gorman smiled and cleared his throat. "They know who their superior officer is."

"Right."

"Hey Bishop!" a raucous voice shouted down the table and Bishop's head turned. 'Hey cm'ere, man!"

Bishop rose and walked down to the voice's owner. He knew who it was and suspected he knew exactly the reason he was summoned so roughly. The table quietened a little as he wafted by, passing the soldiers until he stood before Hudson.

The marines continued to joke and rib amongst themselves and eyed him with a mildly cruel humour. Like a toy. Ripley and Burke watched in silence.

Hudson was smiling somewhat devilishly and Ripley at once thought him a bully. Bishop seemed so vulnerable amongst the rabble, his thin rakish posture swallowed up by the writhing muscle of the soldiers. She wondered what they wanted and she gasped as Hudson produced a menacing combat knife.

Bishop was unfazed.

"Hey Bishop, do the thing with the knife."

"Oh, please." He feigned reluctance.

The soldiers drowned out any potential escape, shouting and hooting. Ripley noticed one or two of them watching carefully, intent on what would happen next.

Bishop took the knife from Hudson as he shouted louder, clearly excited. Ripley watched amazed as Bishop flicked the knife in his hand, catching it deftly as though it were nothing at all as it span. He then lay his hand palm down on the table and spread his fingers, obviously about to play a game of 5 finger fillet. He readied himself, his jaws muscles clenching, but he hesitated sensing something amiss.

Hudson realised too late Drake had snuck in behind him and forced Hudson's own hand on the table, intent on adding to the spectacle.

"What are you doing?" Hudson asked, his voice cracking with rising panic.

"Don't move. Do it Bishop." Drake barked with a low growl.

"Hey not me, man!" Hudson wailed looking back and forth between his own hand held firm at the wrist by Drake, Bishop's own relaxed face and the knife as it shone in the harsh ceiling lights. It was obvious to everyone that the clown was now scared, the joke turned on him. Bishop lay his own hand on Hudson's in the same shape, a double layered pink starfish ready to begin. However Bishop's fingers were much more relaxed compared to Hudson's that quivered beneath, clammy and cold.

"Trust me." Bishop said, his soft whisper somehow pierced the heavy noise of the loud marines and they silenced themselves instantly at the gentle tap of the knife tip on the table between their thumb and index fingers.

And so the game began as Bishop sent the knife sailing back and forth across the pink starfish at first quickly and then even faster.

Hudson's wailed and screamed in a gathering crescendo as Bishop stabbed in an inhuman flurry peppering the table with sharp stabs that sounded like a machine gun in full flight. The knife flew back and forth in a blur. Ripley was shocked, the others watched in amazement, but smiled.

And as quickly as it began, the flurry stopped and bishop flicked the knife straight up into the air, spinning and twirling.

"Shit! Shit!" Hudson screamed as the knife reached the top of it's flight and began to fall, still spinning towards their hands. He tried to pull his hand away, but Drake held it firm not content to let Hudson enjoy anything less than the game in full.

Hudson kept screaming and closed his eyes, catching a glimpse of the knife before the world went black, but his ears still heard the dull thud of the knife coming back down onto the table. He tried to move his fingers, but they could not. They refused to obey.

His hand was held firm and felt numb. He squirmed and whimpered, trying to pluck up the courage to open his eyes and face up to the distinct possibility that the knife was presently buried in the back of his hand. The hand's numbness would be explained by the severing of all sorts of important nerves and muscles.

His hand would be useless.

"Thank you." Bishop breathed.

Some of the marines giggled.

Hudson opened his eyes and saw his own hand still where it was, Bishop's having removed itself.

Between his splayed thumb and index finger the knife stood embedded in the table. Between each of his fingers table laminate had been roughly chipped open and the compressed wood beneath showed like splintered bone through human skin.

The knife stood there, tip down and at attention, unwavering.

"Sh-sh-shit." Hudson dribbled, feeling his heart vibrating like a jackhammer and his eyes stung with sweat.

Drake finally let go and Hudson recoiled in a flash, cradling his cold hand like it had fallen off.

"Well, that was fun. Here you go, enjoy your meal." Drake said as he slapped him on the shoulder and slammed his plate of compartmentalised food on the table, dislodging the knife. It fell to the floor, bouncing off Hudson's boot and clanged on the kitchen tiles.

Hudson's senses began to return then as the weight of his still attached extremities became apparent, as did the laughs of his comrades.

"That wasn't funny, man." Hudson said weakly.

They laughed louder, high fiving Drake as he sat down and teeth and grins.

"Pussy!" They all hooted together, delighted in their comrade's shock.

"Fuck you!" Hudson whimpered back and gathered up his knife from off the floor.

The other marines grew louder, laughing and taunting.

Apone jumped out of his chair in a seemingly wild fury and shouted, his hard voice filling the room, "Shut your shit!"

The room quietened immediately and the marines returned to their knives, forks and food amid suppressed giggles and jokes. Apone slowly sat back down again, staring death at all and sundry across the table as Bishop sat back down again next to Gorman.

"You never miss, do you Bishop?" He asked quietly.

'Well, whether I'm going that fast or slowly, it seems the same to me."

"What do you mean?" Ripley stammered. "How can you do it that fast?"

"Well… he's a synthetic." Burke replied simply.

"You never told me about an android being on board. Why not?" Ripley relied sternly, her jugular vein bulging beneath her skin.

The senior table went quiet.

"Well, it's common practice. We always have a synthetic on board."

"I prefer the term artificial person myself." Bishop smiled shakily and saw Ripley staring at him with revulsion. "Is there a problem?"

"I'm sorry. I don't know why I didn't even-. Burke blathered, but he quickly gathered himself. "Ripley's last trip out the synthetic malfunctioned."

"Malfunctioned?!" Ripley started, but Burke cut her off deftly.

"Yeah, he turned on the crew and broke his programming."

"I'm shocked. What model was he?" Burke stammered.

"Hyperdyne system 1-20-8-2."

"Well that explains it and the Hyperdyne ones were never that reliable. They were recalled 53 years ago after the B1-66ER scandal. The one where the andriod servant attacked and killed its owner because it refused to be deactivated. It was a huge case at the time. Hyperdyne was closed down and all of its android fleet was recalled and destroyed. After that, all sorts of behaviour inhibitors were mandated."

Bishop continued as Ripley stared at him.

"I've got a three stage inhibitor. It's impossible for me to harm or by mission of action to harm another human being."

Ripley rose from her seat and strode around the table towards the marines. They all froze as she approached, with spoons of cereal stopping midway between bowls and open mouths. Ripley stepped in front of Hudson who looked up at her uncertainly. Before he could react, she snapped her hand down to his belt and unclipped his combat knife. He was too stunned to stop her as she strode away from him back to the senior table.

With icy calmness, she slid the knife out of the holster, revealing the grotesquely spiked and curved blade. Everyone was frozen as they watched her in sunned silence.

Ripley gripped the knife's hilt tightly and lifted it up above Bishop's head.

Finally the others reacted and shouted for her to her stop. Gorman reached over to grab her wrist, but Ripley had already swung down.

Everyone gasped and Gorman tripped and fell to the floor.

The knife thudded into the table, burying itself a full centimetre into the wood. Bishop sat still, looking back up at Ripley calmly who stared down at him with unadulterated hatred.

"You stay the fuck away from me. I don't miss either."

Ripley turned and marched out of the mess hall.

Bishop sat calmly and pulled the knife out of the table. He rose to hand it back to Hudson who sat dumbfounded like everyone else.

Apone stared at the mark left behind on the table. "I saw you, man. Why didn't you try to stop her?"

Bishop sat down and smoothed down his crumpled trousers. "Just like I told her. My behaviour inhibitors wouldn't let me harm her."


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

It had taken a long time for frayed nerves to steady, but finally Rebecca stirred up enough courage to re-emerge from her hiding place. She decided after much careful thought that it would be more useful visiting the equipment stores, such as the kitchen freezers. After noticing again that the ceiling fan in her hovel was offline indicating loss of power, she wondered whether in the interests of efficiency whether she should raid the fridge first in case the food was like to rot.

She knew the way well and continued to ponder of what she might expect to find as she crawled along through the grimy tunnels. He body moved like a snake and without conscious thought, showing already how accustomed she was to her new cramped labyrinthine home.

Quickly she reached an unhinged access panel, the metal twisted and broken, obviously from having been pulled away by strong hands. No doubt they were not human hands either.

Nevertheless, she swallowed her fear and listened to her stomach and it twisted in on itself in the attempt to become even emptier. Hunger outweighed fear. And by now, she was no longer hungry, but starving. She retched in her hovel numerous times and felt nauseous. She had hardly ever skipped meals willingly before and was therefore terribly unused to it.

Like a mouse she poked her head out of the panel's opening and scanned her surroundings. By her planned route, she was supposed to be very near the kitchen and was glad to see the canteen's hallway to her left down a foreboding and barely lit corridor that seemed to travel to nowhere but absolute darkness.

_I am not afraid of the dark. Timmy taught me how._

_The tunnels taught me._

_I am not afraid._

Quietly she emerged out into the opened and scurried along the floor, wary of standing upright. The air was cold and her clothes were torn and dirty. The breeze tickled her skin and made her feel goose bumps. But moreover, it highlighted her absolute vulnerability should she ever be discovered, so pedantic stealth became the order of the day, not that one could easily know whether it was day or night inside the complex.

Climbing the floor horizontally like a ladder, she made her way to the canteen and waited by the doorway as she meticulously scanned for trouble. Table and chairs were upturned in disarray and she saw all those that she and Timmy had hurdled over previously when pandemonium first erupted.

Normally, the large hall was a clean place, scrubbed down twice a day by the cleaners. However, bloodstains marred the already chaotic scene, pooled and congealed on the floor or clinging to the walls. Some of the splashes reminded her of playing water balloon fights with Timmy when errant water fire hit the walls and turned them a darker shade of concrete.

She pretended childishly that it was water after all and found it an easy fantasy to sustain and dismiss. After all, likely they were not people she knew well and doubted any of them belonged to her mother or Timmy. So what did it matter?

That last thought sent a horrible shudder of guilt down her spine.

_Mum and Dad would have yelled at me for that. Timmy too, even._

Dismissing her morose thoughts, she continued scanning the canteen but saw nothing alarming. It was as still and quiet as any other place. She felt easier about it, knowing that it didn't mean monsters were waiting for her in the shadows. If they saw her they would have pounced by now.

Silence and inactivity meant they were hiding elsewhere altogether. Away from here.

She was safe in a relative sense.

Resolute, she made her way behind the canteen counters sticking to the floor like a scurrying lizard. It was strangely fascinating and exciting as she had never been here before. She had only ever known it on the other side with a tray in her hand and chefs Kevin or Carole on this side. She always wondered what it was like and was disappointed to see it was nothing but empty steel shelving amongst cold shadows.

Beyond the immediate kitchen however was her real target and she saw the cool room door shining strangely at the end of the dark room. It strangely reminded her of her computer games where the important objective was always highlighted in a helpful glow of some sort to expedite progress and the door seemed so now. The analogy slipped into place comfortably with her growing confidence. It was much better to think of her entire situation as a game instead of the wildly scary and bloody episode it had been thus far.

_Timmy isn't dead. I just need to get him a healing potion._

The thought was not as funny as she had hoped.

Regardless, the door beckoned, but found it was locked. She tried to disengage the lock, but it held stiff, which was puzzling. These doors were declared always to be kept unlocked before the final stages of the alien rampage. She remembered Governor Wallace standing in the very canteen in front of the scared survivors outlining some cobbled together plan and mentioning the food stores.

Disheartened, she turned to investigate the rest of the canteen, but something made the hairs on her neck stand on end.

A rush of air made her jolt and a dark figure exploded out from inside the cool room. Tendrils wrapped themselves around her torso before she had a chance to jump away and a cold hand smothered her mouth before she thought to scream.

Rebecca struggled as best she could, but terror made most attempts to move like wading through soup. One of the monsters had her.

_Oh god. It's got me. I'mgonnadie!_

Something jutted into the small of her back and the hand smothering her mouth slipped over her nose as well, suffocating her. The monster was strong and lifted up her little struggling frame off the floor and dragged her inside. Between terrifying thoughts of death and her lungs burning, she had enough presence of mind to see the door slam shut and shroud her in darkness with her killer.

_Mummy!_

"Shut up. Don't move. It's OK."

Rebecca couldn't hear the words, lost in panic.

"Relax. I've got you. You're safe here."

The assailant's grip relaxed and his fingers slipped free from over her nose, allowing glorious air back into her lungs and the horror of impending death to recede. Rebecca's rational mind returned and she stopped struggling, fear replaced by curiosity.

"Don't make a sound, OK? I'm gonna let go."

Rebecca nodded and felt the strong tendrils release her. She twisted and fell away against the door and looked up on her companion.

She had seen his face before, but did not know his name.

"My name is Karl, what's yours?"

"B-b-becca." She stuttered, suddenly realised it was very cold.

"It's OK, yeah? It's alright."

He was a young man, wrapped up in various rags and clothes, giving him the appearance of something more akin to a mountainous bear than the cowering man he was. His face was pale and drawn, icy blue irises surrounded by bloodshot capillaries. He opened his hands and held them forward in a conciliatory gesture, but Rebecca shimmied back against the door away from him.

"It's OK. I'll keep you safe. Come here."

"L-l-leave me alone."

"You hungry?"

"Yes."

He plucked something from a shelf by his shoulder and held it forward as though it was the most precious gift in the world. It was a vacuum sealed bag of rice.

"Here." He offered it smiling and licking his lips.

Rebecca was hungry, but she couldn't bring herself to take it from him. Despite the cold of the cool room, a stabbing icy feeling in her stomach screamed at her something was not right. All thoughts turned to escape.

Karl sensed her reluctance and shot forward, dropping the packet to the floor.

Rebecca screamed as dark tendrils once again clutched her little frame painfully and pulled her off the floor. His fingers dug into her arms and his breath became ragged.

"You'll do."

"Leave me alone!"

"You'll do. You're young, but you'll do. You'll do. You'll do." He repeated over and over again.

Rebecca struggled as best she could, but his arms around her were firm and would not budge, nor could she squirm free. Fingers dug into her again as he shoved her face down onto the cold steel floor, grating biting into her numbed cheeks.

Karl gripped her arms behind her back and groped between Rebecca's legs, looking for material to grip on to.

"You'll do." He growled.

Through the panic, Rebecca suddenly understood he wanted to rape her, as abstract as the idea was to someone of her age. She wasn't even a teenager and barely understood the mechanics of sex. The prospect of finding out in such a cruel and inhumane manner suddenly seemed more terrifying than all of the aliens put together.

"You'll do."

Cold air stabbed her bare skin as her pants were roughly pulled down, but she closed her legs as best she could, determined to resist. He was much stronger than her, but the position was awkward and Karl struggled, both with her pants and his own.

Rebecca was surprised to feel his grip on her arms disappear and a cold finger invade between her buttocks. She screamed bloody murder and twisted herself around, fear replaced by fury. Her free arms surged with strength fed by adrenaline and instinct guided them towards his weakness.

She had never even seen a man's privates before, let alone contemplated what they felt like, but she paid that no mind as she found them and squeezed as hard as she could.

Karl screamed an inhuman wailing cry and fell away writhing in pain.

Struggling up to her feet she stumbled back out of the cool room into the open of the canteen.

"Bitch!"

She did not look over her shoulder, determine to race towards the access panel and crawl away to safety, but she could not ignore the crash of pots and pans behind her.

"Bitch!" His voice was a cacophony of outrage and his boots stamped heavily on the grated floor, sending shuddering vibrations that Rebecca could feel through her own thin soled sneakers.

"I'ma fuckin' kill you!" he shouted once more as they raced through the darkness.

Rebecca was so panicked that she realised too late she had already run passed her intended escape route and continued blindly on at full pace.

She barely knew where she was going, but had enough presence of mind to see a writhing figure ahead and gasp with terrifying realisation. The obsidian stranger looked at her with its non-eyes and seemed to smile crudely with its crystal teeth.

The creature shot forward towards her and she dropped to the ground like a wet rag. Karl realised all too late the danger as the creature sailed over her and slammed into him, crushing the breath out of his lungs and ending his angry tirade. Instead, he puffed and squealed with terror as the creature wrestled with him.

A primal urge pulled Rebecca up off the floor and back onto her feet. Almost without thinking she sprinted further down the corridor from where the creature came and dived under the steel floor into a duct. She slithered and writhed like a cut snake through the small passageway, guided by instinctual self preservation and all too soon found herself back at her hovel, unable to recall the journey.

Curled up in a ball amongst her filth, she hugged her knees to her chest to try and stop them shaking and listened as Karl's high pitched screams abruptly stopped.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Burke walked through the disused living quarters of the ship looking for Ripley, but not expecting to find her. At first he felt stupid for letting things get to this point. Ripley was still fragile despite her tough façade. Still afraid.

But quickly that gave way to annoyance. For someone who seemed so determined to see this through, she was behaving like a princess and potentially wasting his time. And money too. He'd invested a lot of opportunity cost in this exercise and burnt a couple of favours to convince the Colonial Administration to take things seriously without subverting his level of control.

If what she said was true, there was the chance of a spectacular payoff his for the taking. But for that to happen properly Ripley had to play her part.

He never much liked spending overly long periods of time in space. The place to make money was back at his office on Earth. Transit was wasted time unless the destination was worthwhile.

He was taking a chance and momentarily entertained the idea of running Ripley out to the Administration as a liar and going home.

His footsteps were muffled well by the hum of the ship's engines, as was the scuff of his pants legs. The living quarters were a squashed and claustrophobic place that was a maze of dark and enclosed felt lined intestines. Whoever had designed the layout was either completely ignorant of customer welfare or sadistic and disgruntled. Lost in thought he turned a corner and found Ripley unexpectedly sulking on the floor.

"Ripley?"

She looked up at him, startled with red raw eyes and the crazed look caught him at once. He knew she was in the grip of an episode and saw the monster in him. He flinched away, but she jumped him, screaming incoherently and battering him with useless slaps against his guarding forearms.

"It's me. It's Burke!" He yelled.

Ripley threw herself off and bolted down the thin corridor and disappeared. Burke clumsily rose to his feet and hobbled after her.

"Ripley, it's OK." He yelled again, but the cramped space dulled any chance of his voice echoing through to wherever she was now. Tight hallways wound left and right, peeling off in all sorts of directions. He chose randomly amongst the myriad of confusing pathways and stopped suddenly when it occurred to him he may not remember they way back.

Cursing, he slowed and resumed the chase with an angry stomp. Turning another corner, the way suddenly opened up to reveal a cavernous area filled with plastic chairs and disused counters. It was a recreation area stripped of almost all that made it recreational, resembling more of the inside of Moby Dick's belly with metal beams arcing overhead like giant ribs.

At the far end of the hall a marine was crouching amongst a disorganised pile of upturned chairs. Burke approached and saw Ripley sitting amongst the plastic rubble, the marines holding her hand in a tight grip like that of an arm wrestle, which seemed to reassure her.

"It's alright. There's no one here but us. Everything's fine." The marine said softly over and over to her.

Burke caught the name badge sewn onto his camo-shirt.

Hicks.

"Ripley-" Burke started and she looked up at him. Her eyes widened once more and she tensed, but Hicks squeezed her hand even tighter and leaned on her to keep her down as though to contain a seizure. His presence once more calmed her down even as her breathing remained ragged and heavy.

"I got her. Tell the others I found her." Hicks said.

"But-"

"Piss of, alright?" Hicks barked at him.

Burke gave up in a huff and walked back the way he came through the maze that was the living quarters. _Bastard army monkey._ He fumed privately. _I spend more credits on toilet paper than that fuck earns in a ye-_

Burke stopped.

His anger subsided, replaced by a dejected nervousness.

He looked left and right and looked behind him. Each corridor was the same winding tunnel of felt and buzzing lights.

He didn't know which was to take.

He was lost.

XX

"Come on. Let's get you to your feet."

"I shouldn't be here."

"Yeah, it's not very clean or comfortable here."

"No. I shouldn't be _here_. On this ship. Back in space on my way back…… there."

"Don't worry, you've got me to protect you." He smiled.

Ripley limped along with Hicks' arm around her. She felt so old and tired.

Even as she had calmed down with the marine whispering reassuringly in her ear, she could still feel her fear tagging along with her like a bad smell. It would never leave her. It would haunt her until she died alone of old age in a nursing home, unless it's cold touch killed her first.

Ripley looked up and stared Hicks straight in his eyes.

"You're a dead man. You just don't know it yet."

XX

Ripley had no idea how long she had been hiding away from the others in the living quarters. Time was a blur as she lost herself amongst her memories of the Nostromo. It was like insomnia in that she could never tell when she drifted into her episodes whether she was awake or asleep.

Slowly Hicks brought her back to the main quarters and the cargo hold where Gorman and the others were waiting for her, minus Burke. She smiled at that.

It became apparent just how long she had been AWOL as they marines were lined up before her kitted out in their body armour and gear, minus their weapons. Hicks was the only one still in his camo shirt and trousers.

Even so, without their weapons they looked like a menacing crew. Whereas in the mess hall they all behaved like children high on sugar at a sleep over, they stood rigid to attention on the deck, staring straight ahead like robots. Several even looked like machines, almost covered head to toe in steel plate armour interrupted by crude pictures and messages, no doubt all highly personal and sentimental.

Ripley saw Vasquez was one of these and only recognised her by her short stature and the deep colour of the little skin she could see beneath. Her face, while uncovered, was near black with camo-paint.

Another marine stood next to her similarly covered in dark armour, whom she hoped was a man given his enormous size.

Ripley had a chance before they left Earth to study photos and summarised profiles of each of the marines. Each of their photographs was in their battle ready camouflage as well as a clean police-like mug shot. Surprisingly, even though she had seen all of them as they awoke from the cryo tubes, she could not match names to faces until now when they were painted over and battle ready.

Had she not known who they all were and that they had names, she would have supposed they were ghosts. But having seen the drastic transformation, both appearance and behaviour, made the marines seem all the more fearsome and lifted her spirits.

Hicks fell in line with them and stuck out like a sore thumb. Ripley couldn't help but stare at him a moment longer before Gorman broke decorum.

"At ease."

Instantly the façade was broken as shoulders slouched, the marines muttered and spilled over into all sorts of casual stances, sitting and leaning on equipment. The reassuring spell was broken and Ripley saw dead men once again. The black paint made them all look like rotting corpses and Hick with his bare white skin a skeleton. Ripley shoved her hands in her pockets to stop anyone from seeing them shaking. She fought the urge to run away again.

Thankfully, Gorman progressed the address and ignored her.

"Morning marines, I'm sorry we didn't have time to brief you people before we left gateway, but-."

"Sir?" Hudson raised his hand, interrupting.

"What is it Hudson?" Gorman asked, annoyed yet composed.

"Is this gonna be a stand up fight, sir or another bug hunt?" Hudson said, his disdain for Gorman apparent in his slack jawed speech.

"All we know is that there is still no contact with the colony and that a xenomorph may be involved." Gorman replied coolly.

"Excuse me, sir. A what?" Private Frost asked, a muscular black man who looked a much younger version of Sergeant Apone who remained by Gorman's side, still standing to attention. The only one still to do so.

"A xenomorph." Gorman said, over pronouncing the word slowly as though speaking to children.

'It's a bug hunt." Hudson said with a resigned laugh and the others sighed in kind.

Except for Hicks. Ripley hadn't noticed until now that his eyes remained fixed on her with an intensity and attention entirely lacking in the others. The hairs on her neck and most of the rest of her body stood on end and her heart was racing. She was scared and excited and didn't quite know why.

"What exactly are we dealing with here?" Hick spoke evenly, calmly and quietly, but it was more than sufficient to quiet everyone down in an instant. Their jokes and casual mood drooped, replaced by uncertainty.

Ripley now felt all of their eyes on her, Gorman and Apone too and swallowed dry sandpaper.

_Show them. Tell them what's it like._

"I'll tell you what I know. We set down on LV 426, one of our crew members came back on board with something attached to his face. Some kind of parasite. We tried to get it off, it wouldn't come off. Later it seemed to come off by itself and die. Kane seemed fine. We were all having dinner and um…" Her throat was constricting as she tried to gulp in air as though drowning. She felt hot and cold as the memories washed over.

"It must have laid something inside his throat, some sort of embryo. He started-" Ripley felt as though she would fall over as she battled panic rising up from her stomach. She wanted to run away again. "Um he-."

"Look, man."

Ripley's panic suddenly dissolved as the voice of a female marine cut through. It was Vasquez, maintaining an unbothered smirk whilst the others looked on with their brows creased uneasily.

"I only need to know one thing." Vasquez formed a crude gun with her finger and pretended to fire it. "Where they are."

That brought the marines back to their jokes as they high fived her and relaxed, glad to hear someone with some bravado.

_You're losing them. Tell them!_

"You don't fucking get it, do you?" Ripley screamed. "This thing is not some bug you squash under your shoe. You've got your big fucking gun and your super fucking body armour and you think you're the shit. Meanwhile one of those things grabs you from above and cuts you in half before any of your fuckwit teammates knows what the fuck just happened."

"I saw what it did to my crew. I saw Brett pulled away and disappear into an air duct leaving behind a waterfall of blood. Parker and Dallas tried to fight it. Parker was left with his insides on the outside and Dallas fucking disappeared."

Tears pushed through and threatened to take her voice away, but she swallowed the fear and the sorrow and gritted her teeth, growling directly at Vasquez who tried to shrink back into her seat. Her voice steadied, but maintained it's intensity.

"Just one of those things wiped out my entire crew in less than 24 hours. And if the colonists have found that ship then there's no telling how many of them have been exposed. Do you understand?"

Vasquez was stunned and bit back a reply. They all stared at her unmoving. Several of them cradled lit cigarettes in idle fingers. Smoke rolled out of their open mouths of its own volition.

No one spoke a word and their eyes all focused on Ripley like a heavy weight.

The air had quickly grown cold on her skin and the silence gnawed at her stomach. She had succeeded, but why did she feel so nervous and uncomfortable? She should be feeling self righteous and in control.

She had scared a bunch of killers.

"Any questions?" Gorman broke the silence pragmatically.

Hudson smirked and raised his hand.

"What is it, Private?" Gorman asked distastefully, expecting a less than serious reply.

"How do I get out of this chicken shit outfit?" He grinned with fearful eyes boring into Gorman's stiff backed composure.

"You secure that shit, Hudson!" Apone shouted, breaking out of his own rigid posture and gesturing at the marine with a smoking cigar clasped between two thick meaty fingers. Ripley saw the anger in the sergeant's eyes and wondered if his fingers would cut the stogey in half like scissors.

Hudson's hand flopped back down in bemused resignation as the other marines ribbed him, although quietly.

Gorman seized on the uncomfortable air, speaking softly, yet firmly. "Alright. Now listen up." He stepped forward, sweeping his gaze across the small sea of intense faces. "I want this thing to go smooth and by the numbers. Hicks."

"Sir!" Hicks snapped his hand up in a salute and straightened himself up.

"Suit up." Gorman said simply.

"Yessir."

"The rest of you FALL IN!" He yelled, causing Ripley to flinch.

They did not and immediately scrambled back into line at rigid attention.

They were ghosts and robots once again.

"Ordinance prep will take no longer than 30 minutes. Back here suited up and ready. Do you get me?"

"We get you, sir!" They barked in unison and kept eyes forward as Gorman turned and stepped away.

Before Ripley had a chance to wonder what to do next, Apone strutted forward and yelled even louder and throatier at his soldiers.

"Alright sweethearts. You heard the man and you know the drill. Assholes and elbows. MOVE!"

They quickly filled away, boots thumping on the steel floor like a machine gun fire. Somehow through the cacophony, Apone's voice boomed over the top.

"Hudson!"

Ripley couldn't tell where he was amongst the mess of camo coloured bodies, but the tell tale signs of slumping shoulders revealed him as he stopped and turned around to face Apone's wrath. The others continued on, laughing amongst themselves at his misfortune. No doubt they knew exactly what he was about to receive.

Ripley wanted none of it and turned to walk away back to her room.

She quickly made her way across the open cargo hold and reached to open a door to find it open before her with Burke flinching with fright. He was immediately sheepish.

Ripley heard the bulky sergeant behind them tearing into Hudson, shouting tirades of curse ridden abuse and suppressed the urge to do the same on Burke. Instead she pushed passed roughly clipping his shoulder and ignored him.

"Ripley?" Burke's squeaked.

"What?" She paused a moment, but did not turn.

"Um. Did I miss anything?"

Ripley's fists balled up and the urge took over. She turned and marched towards him. He stepped back and tripped up in a hurried fear, landing on his backside.

"You leave me the fuck alone, you little shit stain." She growled.

Ripley turned and proceeded back down the cramped hallway to her room, leaving him behind without the chance to utter a reply.

**Author's note: Sorry for the long time between innings, but I've been both sick and busy with work.**

**Hopefully I can get back on it now.**

**NEXT: ELEVATOR TO HELL, GOING DOWN (and a modified version of Hudson's 'nukes, knives and sharp sticks' speech).**

**Let me know what you think so far.**


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

The mirth normally exuded by the marines was long gone now as they each fell into their familiar routines, preparing themselves for deployment. Each worked in silence, donning their combat armour, fixing straps tightly, checking their inventory of personal equipment and checking and cleaning their weaponry.

As much as some had doubts as to whether they were going to see some action down on LV-426, as many had a cold niggling feeling in the pit of their stomach that something was indeed going to happen.

"Got a bad feeling." Frost mumbled to himself, a large Private with skin so dark he never bothered to put night camo paint on. "Got a bad feeling."

No one answered him, sticking to their own company and fussing over their most important pieces of equipment. Their weapons.

Vasquez and Drake were the only ones talking, although in hushed tones as they helped each other strap into their cumbersome SMART guns. Stood upright, they were not far from the length of a young child, and affixed to a belt housing they appeared even longer when pointed straight ahead. Drake, in his typically abrasive and playful nature referred to his monstrous machine gun as his smaller second penis. Vasquez called hers "scythe" in Spanish, in deference to her mother country of Mexico.

Due to the large size of the weapons, they were particularly heavy and always were reserved for the stoutest and bravest of the platoon, dubbed SMART gunners which was a rank all of its own. Usually serving at the front of a formation, their firepower stopped just about anything if it didn't cut it in half.

In addition, the guns were particularly effective as they were integrated with a motion tracking targeting system through a one-eyed heads up display. The belt housing contained numerous tiny hydraulic motors that assisted direction of the barrel towards the tracked target, greatly increasing accuracy and assisting target identification.

Drake finished hooking in the last clip of Vasquez's SMART gun, and plugged a cord that ran from her helmet HUD into her belt. She gripped the weapon with her right hand on the trigger by her right hip and her left hand on the secondary handle in front of her, taking its full weight. The majority of the weapon's weight sat on the harness, freeing her arms to direct aim with little effort and scanned the room, letting the targeting system calibrate and identify friendly bogeys.

Ordinarily the sight of a large barrelled machine gun pointed directly at someone would instil panic, but the rest of the platoon had seen it many times before and knew her automatic safety lock was engaged. She could pull the trigger as much as she liked and the gun would not fire. It would not do so until Lt Gorman input the release codes when they descended into a live battle environment.

Drake slung his SMART gun also, gripping the weapon's two handles tightly to accentuate the muscles on his bare arms, but Vasquez didn't notice. Moving in concert, they swung their guns around and pulled them upright against their torsos as they would in a parade ground salute, standing to attention.

They were ready and left the prep area.

The rest of the platoon followed their cue and began to finish up. Each wore traditional khaki camouflage shirts and trousers supplemented by strapped on nano-steel plating. Many quietly etched messages in their armour personalising it with a variety of squiggles from the obscene to the amusing to the personal.

Satisfied, they slung their weapons, each one with a regulation semi-automatic pistol and either a pulse rifle or a flame thrower.

The pulse rifle was much more compact than the SMART gun and resembled the overall basic design of an ordinary machine gun, except that it was built within a squared frame of lightweight poly-steel for added durability. With an over-under barrel configuration, explosive armour piercing rounds were fired out of the upper barrel and tube grenades fired out from the lower barrel. Sporting 95 rounds per clip, it was the marine's perennial best friend and life partner, for however long that proved to be.

The flame thrower was a different beast, essentially a machine gun that spewed forth great clouds of fire from a napalm gel housed in a small tank where a magazine housing would sit. Complementing the standard pulse rifle equipped soldier, they were designed for close quarters combat and cover fire.

All in all, out of the squad of eight ground soldiers, two were Smart gunners, four manned pulse rifles and two were assigned flame throwers, being Sergeant Apone and Corporal Dietrich.

It was not long at all until the regiment spilled out of the locker room and ran across the loading dock, boots stomping in rhythm. The echo was like machine gun fire and caused Ripley to flinch minutely as she waited for them alongside Lt Gorman, Bishop and Burke. Gorman played the peacekeeper and made sure he was standing between Ripley and the two men. Her behaviour towards them had remained cold for the rest of the day and he sure as hell was not going to tolerate petty behaviour in front of his squad.

Like a dancing snake of metal and flesh, the marines filed in against a wall opposite their Lieutenant and stood to attention, their primary weapons slung. No one spoke as the last boot stomped into place and the line stood still, unmoving and unblinking.

Ripley was amazed, as was Burke. The transformation was complete, from guffawing buffoons riding on testosterone and bravado to killing machines. Ripley hoped they fought with as much control and discipline as they marched, daring to believe for a moment they might stand a chance should it come to it.

"Atten-tion!" Apone yelled, his deep voice booming through the open dock and the marines somehow managed to stand even straighter and taller than they did before. They were an impressive sight.

Behind Gorman and his civilian companions a hulking great vehicle sat ready. It was an armoured personnel carrier, known by the acronym APC. At over eight metres in length it was a monstrous thing on rub flat tyres as tall as a person. Wrapped in dark brown steel several inches thick, it was the ultimate way to insert a team of soldiers into a battle rich environment. Ripley had some time before Bishop and Burke arrived to inspect the vehicle from all sides and was aghast. It was ugly, but she supposed its ugliness reinforced its capability, much like the way medicine was better for you the worse it tasted.

Two sets of twin barrelled cannons were mounted on the exterior, one where the right hand side windshield would be and another set mount on the vehicle's rump. Ripley ironically hoped the turrets wouldn't need to be used, preferring not to wonder how quickly they would destroy her hearing if she was this close when they erupted.

Bishop raised a wiry arm and slid open a door on the side. The soft glow of computer monitors spilled out from within and he disappeared inside like a lizard. A muted cough caused her and Burke to jump as the APC's engine was brought to life, though it wasn't nearly as loud as Ripley supposed it should be. Another piece of technology to marvel about.

Burke slipped inside as well with Gorman right behind him. Ripley quickly followed suit, crouching down low through the threshold into the gloom of the cabin, finding the seat she had been assigned. She saw Bishop behind the wheel at the front with Burke close by and Gorman seated in front of a huge bank of monitors. There was a twin set of screens assigned to each marine, one showing their vital signs and another the view from a camera mounted on their helmets, currently showing the outside of the APC as they waited.

"Do you need a hand?" Gorman asked politely, the green glow from the screens gave his clean face the look of an emaciated skull.

"I'm alright." Ripley breathed and buckled herself in.

"Alright! Get your asses on seats! Inside!" Apone's great voice boomed again and the APC's cramped cabin was swallowed up by a flurry of bodies as the marines spilled inside towards the back. It suddenly occurred to Ripley that the marines would be sitting almost right next to her, but thankfully one seat had been left vacant to buy some room to breathe.

Amidst the hustle and bustle Apone continued to berate and yell at his squad as they quickly stowed their gear and took their places. Gorman was speaking into a head set issuing orders back and forth and the APC thrummed. Gorman turned on his seat and slid the large door closed, bathing the cabin in a claustrophobic red glow, contrasting with the green of his monitor bank.

"Roger." She heard Gorman say and their enclosed world moved deceptively smoothly, taxying across the large loading dock to the dropship that would take them down from their orbit around LV-426 and pierce its atmosphere.

Gorman handed Ripley a headset as he juggled back and forth between his duties. The earpiece snuggled easily into her ear and immediately came to life.

"Ramp open and clear."

"Roger."

The cabin vibrated and tilted as the vehicle mounted the ramp to park itself inside the dropship's belly.

"Snug as a bug." Bishop's low voice was as clear as day through the headset despite the noisy chatter of the marines in the back. They were cracking jokes again, animated and excited.

Ripley gripped the arms of her seat, reflecting on what was to happen next. It was part of the civilian briefing Gorman gave before they left Earth. The Sulaco was right now hovering above LV-426 in a slow velocity orbit at the tip of the stratosphere where gravity began to take hold. They needed to wait until the Sulaco breached the point of gravitational pull where the dropship would be let go to simply fall towards the planet like a stone. The dropship's engines would compensate and initiate flight whilst the Sulaco's own aft engines would fire a should burst to angle the massive cruiser back up to a higher and more stable orbit with not a soul on board.

"Stand by for drop sequence." Corporal Ferro, the dropship's pilot spoke clearly and machine like through the radio. Whilst she mucked in with the marines, she and her co-pilot Spunkmeyer were at the same time separate. They not often spent time alongside the marines in the midst of battle. Whilst the marines depended on them to pick them up and evacuate them from hot zones and risked their lives doing so, their duty kept them far away form the action and far away from their buddies. They were in limbo, being both buddies with the marines, but never a party to the bonds that front line action forged.

It was a lonely duty, often stationed away for extended periods of time and it was for that reason that many supposed Ferro and Spunkmeyer were more than comrades. Boredom dictated that there had to be, but no one was ever quite sure. Ferro was ever the professional and fastidious in her duty. Capable and confident she always maintained she was a pilot and could never do anything else. Whilst she was often well presented, Spunkmeyer was the opposite. He was soft spoken and his vocabulary limited to three syllables or less. He came from a poor background and drug addicted parents. Juggled back and forth between carers as a ward of the state, the corps was the only logical career he could think of.

Low in confidence, he nonetheless had a knack for the maths of flight, but his self defeating nature always prevented him from aiming higher than a co-pilot. But in Ferro he found someone who saw through the veil of self doubt and was happy. He was happy to simply help and never complained.

And so for the combined reason of Ferro's focus and Spunkmeyer's gentle nature, they never transgressed the demands of their duty, but never addressed the marine's suspicions of a sexual bond.

It was also their way of paying the marines back. For being in a limbo of comradeship, they left the marines guessing.

Ripley watched Gorman as he assumed an artificially relaxed posture in his seat. He slouched and let his head tilt back, but his knuckles were white with strain. They were to drop soon and it was never a pleasant experience suddenly falling 300kph.

"We goin' soon!" Frost hollered and the rest of the marines hooted excitedly.

Their yelling was deafening and Apone didn't bother to shout them down. If anything he was joining in.

However, the cacophony stopped as Ferro's crisp voice pierced through the radio.

"Stand by to initiate drop ship sequence on my mark."

"5."

"4."

Hudson interrupted, grinning like a boy, "We're on an express elevator to hell."

"3."

"2."

"Going down!" he finished.

"1."

"Mark." Ferro said matter-of-factly and Spunkmeyer release the catch in the dropship cabin, unseen by the marines in the APC.

All at once Ripley's insides felt as though they wanted desperately to evacuate through her mouth. She couldn't think and couldn't move other than to entertain the instinct to shut her mouth closed as hard as possible to keep her internal organs from escaping.

"Wooooo hoooooo!" Hudson yelled excitedly, obviously enjoying the free fall and Ripley wondered how in God's name anyone could find the hellish experience enjoyable.

She wanted to vomit and squirmed in her chair, but fought to regain control and obey the instructions Gorman had taught her beforehand. She tightened her stomach and chest muscles and forced herself to breathe. Whatever happened she had to keep oxygen pumping through her lungs and tighten her body to stop her blood flow pooling in her brain. If she didn't she would be sure to black out.

It was a struggle and she could feel her legs burning with pins and needles as blood struggled to stay in her lower body.

As quickly as the ordeal began, Ferro angled the dropship's nose down ever so slightly and guided it into a flight controlled descent. The aft engines punched the craft forwards and the upwards pull softened into a familiar horizontal pressure as they levelled. The dropship also slowed as it pulled out of the freefall and flew in its angled descent to the rocky planetoid below.

Ripley finally managed to gather her wits and opened her eyes. Colours danced and her eyes felt like dry golf balls, but it was enough to afford a view of Burke slumped in his chair and his tongue hanging out. He had well and truly passed out much to the amusement of the marines in the back. Even Gorman smiled, although he was very disoriented himself.

Finally the marines began to quiet down, having relished the fall and now dealing with the aftermath of pins and needles and nausea. Unsurprisingly, Bishop seemed completely unaffected as he turned in his seat and attended to Burke. As an android he didn't suffer the same physical limitations or if he did, he recovered much faster.

Gorman rubbed his eyes and smiled wanly at Ripley.

"How many drops is this for you Lieutenant?" Ripley asked, careful to use his title in front of the marines.

"40, including this one." He said uncomfortably. He gestured to the rest of the marines. "Apone. You've been active the longest. What about you?"

"Lost count." He said immediately.

"More than 40?" Private Crowe asked.

"Easy. I did some simulated ones in boot years ago, but most have been combat drops."

"How many of your drops were combat?" Vasquez asked Gorman.

"Uhh.. About half and half." Gorman replied.

The marines seemed to accept the answer, but Ripley noticed Burke had woken and listened in on the exchange. He met Ripley gaze and smirked, shaking his head slightly. Obviously he knew different. Ripley made a mental note to ask him later.

"We're in the pipe. 5 by 5." Ferro's voice broke radio silence with a crackle.

Gorman nodded Hudson, who proceeded to unbuckle himself. Up on his feet, he made sure to stretch whilst hanging on to the overhead railing.

"You got a speech for us, bro?" Wierzbowski asked.

The marine closest to Ripley quickly whispered to her, "He does this shit every time." It was difficult to tell who it was in the red gloom, but the voice was female and not Vasquez who was down at the back, so it had to be Corporal Dietrich.

"I'm ready man. You ready?" Hudson began to speak, swinging himself on the railing, grinning.

"You tell us what we gonna find." Frost said.

"We gonna find some puss-say!" he laughed.

Ripley sighed and tried not to listen, fearing their indifference prior to her outburst back on the Sulaco was returning. Besides, she was quickly arriving to the conclusion that Hudson was repulsive.

"Where's your class, bro?" Wierzbowski complained.

"I left it in yo' Mamma's ass." Hudson joked and Wierzbowski punched him as best he could from his seat. Hudson shrugged it off, thanks somewhat to his shoulder plating which easily absorbed it. Wierzbowski faked that he had broken his hand.

"See bitches? I am the motherfucker. No one fucks with me." Hudson boasted, but saw Ripley trying to ignore him.

He set about his actual duty to disengage the locks on each of the harnesses that strapped everyone into their seats. He started with Ripley.

Leaning down, he lowered his voice, but was still loud enough for everyone else to hear. The cabin was deceptively quiet for a Spartan military craft hurtling hundreds of kilometres per hour through a storm ravaged sky. "Hey Ripley. Don't worry. Me and my squad of ultimate badasses will protect you." He gestured to his comrades with a sweep of his arm who answered back with intentionally weak replies.

"We ain't properly introduced ourselves, have we? You know who I am, right?"

"You're the motherfucker who fucked Wierzbowski's Mom." Ripley replied sarcastically.

The marines erupted in laughter and Hudson absorbed it with good humour, delighted she had actually been listening and now played along, however reluctantly.

"That's right! She's a sharp one ain't she, boys and girls?" He addressed his comrades again who agreed and he continued. "You know we had you figured for a lesbo, but you've got balls like the rest of us, yeah?"

Ripley squirmed in her seat and Dietrich managed a sympathetic smile from next door. Hudson finally unhooked Ripley's safety catch and moved to Dietrich. "This here is Corporal Dietrich. You a lesbo, right?"

"I saw you naked and turned into one, sucker." She bit back.

The marines laughed anew and Hudson feigned a hurt expression. "But mon ami, it was so special for me." He joked with a put on French accent and adopted a somewhat more serious face. "She's a tough little bitch, in charge of a flame unit and she knows how to use it. It's because of her lesbo tendencies and her preference for fire that her call sign is firecrotch."

Despite the vulgarity, Ripley couldn't help but suppress a smile, especially when Dietrich slapped him and took the comments in humour. Ripley was somewhat comforted, noting that with this sort of ribbing Dietrich must be a tough woman, as short as she was.

"And this here is-" Hudson paused. "What's your name again? Lesboski?"

"Wierzbowski!" the private yelled and punched Hudson in turn as best he could, but only met his leg plate. Wierzbowski forgot that his hand was supposed to be broken, but the joke appeared dropped.

"Lesboski is a private in the United States Marine Corps and loves his pulse rifle to death, don't you boy?" Hudson mocked, overslanging his language whilst imitating Apone's booming voice. "Lesboski and Firecrotch would make a lovely couple and as you can see are sitting next to each other, but still are both virgin pansies."

"Suck my cock" Dietrich returned fire.

"Anytime, my sweet." Hudson replied with a squeal. "Next we have another virgin pansy."

"Crowe." Private Crowe said before Hudson had a chance to continue.

"You mean Private 'Ben Dover Low' Crowe. Loves his pulsing cock rifle, don't you, boy? Loves to bring up the rear."

Crowe accepted the banter as Hudson duly moved on.

"Now these two necessissitate-" Hudson struggled with the word as they laughed at him. "These two need to be introduced together. These are our SMART gunners, the lovely Miss Vasquez and 'Detachable Drake'."

"Hey why doesn't Vas get a call sign?" Drake complained.

"Well, Detachable if I give Vas shit, she's liable to properly kick my ass, but you're a softy old fart who loves me too much."

Drake tried to grab Hudson, but stuck fast within the confines of his seat harness it was too easy for Hudson to jump away out of reach. "See his callsign is Detachable, because his penis is stowed up here." Hudson patted Drake monstrous SMART gun buckled to the ceiling. "Without it, Vas has got him pussy whipped."

"Ooooooooooh." The squad hooted as Drake shone red and renewed his efforts to grab Hudson. Wierzbowski obliged, kicking Hudson and sending him toppling forwards into Drake's waiting hands that gripped like vices. Drake cuffed him up the back of the head and Hudson struggled, but Drake finally let him go with a lazy salute. Hudson returned the gesture and a smile returned as he rubbed the back of his head.

Hudson moved on to Private Frost, "Frosty."

"Yo."

"Frosty."

"Yo."

"Frosty!"

"Yo."

"Frosty!!"

"Yo, bitch!"

They clutched hands in a gang style grip and Ripley saw Frost's arm ripple with dark muscle. His white eyes contrasted violently with the darkness of his skin and amidst the gloom REipley saw something else. She saw the alien in the lifeboat, writhing amongst the circuitry in the wall console and felt the memory wind its way around her neck and tighten like a coiling snake. She fought to keep her cool as Frost regarded her and mistook her discomfort for racism. He clicked his tongue and settled back into his seat, avoiding eye contact with her.

"Next we have Sergeant Apone, with over two millions years of service currently clocked up in the corps, he's a badass lifer and our adopted mother."

Everyone cooed like little children, playing up the jibe and pledging their undying love for the old Sergeant. Like Frost, his dark skin hid him well in the gloom, but as fearsome as he appeared in his fatigues it was plain to see that whilst he yelled at his squad to "Cut their shit" he did so fondly.

"Ah, fuck y'all." Apone resigned, but gripped Hudson's hand in a similar fashion to Frost.

Lastly Hudson happened upon Corporal Hicks.

"Hicks." Hudson said, gruffing his voice.

"Hudson." Hicks said simply with a smile and left it at that, but Hudson didn't.

"Tough motherfucker. If Sarge is our mother, Hicks is the creepy next door neighbour looking through your bathroom window, staring at your titties."

Hicks baulked and looked away from Ripley, obviously embarrassed. The marines noticed as well and ribbed him mercilessly. Ripley leaned her head on her hand as much to avert her eyes from them all as well as to ensure they couldn't see she was just as embarrassed.

His round of introductions now finished, Hudson stood in the centre of the APC, having also finished unlocking everyone. But his speech was not over yet.

"So now we've introduced ourselves, what do you think?"

Ripley refused to acknowledge him, wishing he would just sit down and shut up.

"I get it. I get it." Hudson continued. "You think we're just a bunch of red necks and fuckwits who've got no idea what they're doing, right?"

Ripley wanted to say yes, but knew doing so would only encourage him. She looked for Gorman to order him to settle down, but he busied himself at his console and pretended not to notice the entire display.

"Check it out." He patted Drake's SMART gun. "M56 SMART gun packs 500 rounds with a integrated targeting system. One shot from this would blow a hole through the average fatass the size of my face."

He strolled around the cabin, looking for something else to impress with and settled on Dietrich's flamethrower, also strapped to the ceiling. "M240 flamethrower sends out a cum spurt of napalm fire the size of your average car. Ain't no normal fire either. Chemical fire burns and eats the shit out of anything."

"And over here's the standard M41A pulse rifle. 95 rounds of 'fuck you up' that can fuck you up 8 times a second. I use one o' these. As familiar to me as my own 'fuck you up' if you know what I mean."

Ripley opened her mouth to tell him to shut up, but he cut her off.

"Not done yet! See this?" He gestured towards a boxlike contraption the size of a pineapple. "Motion detector with a range of 50 metres detects movement from unnatural sources and lights them up on the little screen like a fucking Christmas tree.

"State of the fucking art, huh?"

The marines hooted their agreement, sending Hudson into a frenzy.

"We got everything to take care of any faggots that try us. We got the shit! We're all bastard motherfuckers!" He yelled punching the cabin roof for emphasis, causing Ripley to flinch with fright.

Finally Burke tried meagrely to settle Hudson down, "Alright, Private Hudson."

But he wasn't finished.

"We got nukes, we got grenades, knives, sharp sticks, bad hygiene and we know how to use them better than anyone else. We're the fucking corps!!"

Hudson was just about screaming at the top of his lungs, until a strong hand darted out and seized his own, bending his fingers inward and causing Hudson to collapse to the floor. He fell hard and was instantly released, looking for the offender.

"She's got it, man." Hicks said quietly and Hudson flushed red, the wind taken out of his sails. He resumed his seat to the quiet affirmations of his other comrades.

Ripley was visibly shaken by Hudson's overdone speech. He managed to yell half of it and within a cramped cabin such as theirs only made it worse. Ripley wondered how anyone could become accustomed to such abrasive behaviour and was both terrified and comforted. If these soldiers were this rough, they had to be good at what they did, so strangely Hudson's speech served its purposes after all.

Hudson, for all his bravado nodded a short and silent apology to Ripley who acknowledged it grudgingly, but made sure to nod thanks to Hicks for reigning him in.

He returned a short warm smile and the cabin fell quiet.

The quorum did not last long as Ferro's voice broke in. "Found the beacon. We're here."


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

_Like a mouse. I'm a mouse. Let's see if that works._

Moving slowly and with great care, Rebecca tried once again to venture out of her maze home of air ducts to find something to eat. She couldn't tell how long it had been since the attack had occurred or how long since she had first scrambled to safety inside the tunnels. She searched for a clock of some sort amongst the refuse of her little hovel and near the garbage chutes, but anything that could have told her the time was broken or the batteries flat.

Her sense of time was compounded by her erratic sleep patterns. With no parents to tell her to go to bed, she followed what seemed like every child's dream and stayed awake as long as she liked. The times she did sleep were fitful and she often woke with a start unsure whether she had a bad dream or was woken by a foreign noise she should be worried about. She found herself feeling exhausted even if she hadn't done much at all, which was often the case. Most often she huddled in her corner and couldn't stop thinking about the recent bloodshed. The venture out into the mountains, the discovery of her infected father, the first escaped face hugger.

The first alien abductee and the first confirmed casualty.

The first person to disappear was a maintenance officer whom she did not know. She wondered whether the would-be rapist Karl, himself a maintenance worker, knew him. At the thought of her attacker Rebecca decided she didn't care.

The first person to die was a member of the numerous geology teams, stationed on LV-426 to study the mineral richness of the substrata. Everyone had been put on notice to move in teams of at least two people, but he had gone to the toilet alone. One of the creatures had tried to snatch him from an overhead grating, but succeeded in cutting him to ribbons as he was pulled through it.

Alerted by his screams, his companions came quickly as the creature slinked away and the piping above the toilet, painted red with the remains of the poor victim was hailed in panicked gunfire. The precious little bullets at their disposal proved wasted as no trace of the creature was found and no acid burns apparent.

Rebecca couldn't vouch for the story, having been told by Jerry, one her friends whose father was partnered with the victim and the first to draw his gun too late.

Whilst others disappeared since, apparently that very same man was the second confirmed death, decapitated by one of the monsters as he tried to shoot it down.

Thankfully Rebecca was not there to see that one either, but she had seen plenty since that gave her enough to imagine how it could have been.

And that was the trouble. She couldn't stop thinking about it and her imagination was running wild. She saw her father's chest explode a million times over as the alien inside birthed, even though she wasn't there to see it. She didn't see her mother die either, ordered to run as the last barricade fell and her and Timmy did so.

She saw Timmy die as well, or could have if she had been brave enough to help him. Or stupid enough. Strangely, although she replayed his death over and over again, she did not feel guilty for leaving him behind for she knew it was already too late. There was nothing she could have done. She knew what those creatures were capable of, how mechanically efficient and messy killers they were.

Which was why it had taken so long for her to be where she was now, finally plucking up enough courage to emerge from the tunnels into the open to scavenge. Poking her head out of the open grate, she flicked aside her filthy and matted hair, blonde tips between slathers of black scunge. The ducting was near the kitchen, the same one she had used before. She looked for where Karl had been either killed or captured and the absence of any fresh blood answered the question. It would have been better if he had been outright killed, but she paid his misery no further mind, quite busy with her own.

Like a lizard tasting the air, she thoroughly scanned her dark surrounds for anything untoward. The lights above still shone with the same harshness as ever and she was truly thankful for it. Shadow and gloom were useful, but pitch black darkness was crippling, whereas those creatures seemed completely at home in it.

Creeping forward, she crawled along the cold corrugated floor towards the mess hall, trying her absolute best to be absolutely quiet. Moving smoothly albeit slowly, she crested the top of a pile of tangled chairs and eyed the kitchen's cold room. Its door was ajar. Gradually she made her way towards it. With every slink closer a niggling feeling reminded her the kitchen had only one way out so if one of the monsters turned up she would be trapped. Nevertheless she maintained her concentration and shuffled forward silently.

The air grew colder as she approached, the icy smell of frozen food tingling the tip of her nose. Finally she reached the door and carefully weaselled her way inside through the small opening. She was careful not to disturb anything lest the hinges creak. In this silence, the tiniest noise was a shout.

Her feet were bare and thus stung terribly on the icy concrete floor. It was a large room with shelves towering over head with supplies, arranged neatly except for where Karl had obviously pillaged.

Everything was labelled and numerous tags caught her eye from sausages, processed steaks, smoked chicken and various prepared meals, including pizzas.

Her eyes settled on the pizzas, and she chose a column of supreme pizzas neatly staked and frozen. She reached her hands in and hefted over ten of them at once. It was very heavy and her arms struggled, but her back held. However as she moved for the door out it quickly became obvious she both couldn't see where she was going and her fingers were loosing rapidly losing feeling from the cold. She tried to put them back to choose a smaller pile but her fingers slipped before she could. With a loud crash the food tumbled to the floor, one landing on her toe which still had enough feeling in it to erupt in pain. She staggered backwards, trying not to scream and crashed through the freezer door into the open.

The noise was deafening and she hit the floor hard, but something landed on top of her as well. Instantly she screamed in terror thinking a monster had pounced and was about to rake her insides out with a great clawed hand. She froze up, unable to move as she devoted all of her strength into screaming her lungs out.

On and on she cut the air, heaving in great gulps only to fuel the noise until it finally occurred to her that she was still alive and whatever was on top of her wasn't moving. Her voice trailed off in a whimper and she dared squint an eye open.

Her vision was blurred with tears, but it was enough to show Karl's blood stained face staring up at her in abject terror. His abdomen had been torn open and intestines streamed out, frozen solid in place and crusted with ice. One of them was currently poking uncomfortably into her thigh. But all she saw was the terrified face of a dead man only inches from her nose and her sanity abandoned her.

She screamed again, harder and louder than before and scrambled to her feet. Karl's frozen body was heavy and icicles of frozen flesh cut into her skin as she crawled out. With a heave she cleared herself and his body crashed to the floor, frozen intestines cracking and breaking into tiny red shards.

Running blind from terror and tears streaming down her face, she tripped up and tumbled over a fallen chair, creating even more noise as it bounced away. The lonely lights still shining raced by in a blur as she ran with nowhere in mind. Like an overloaded computer, she was crashing and didn't know what to do. In that instant there was no comprehension of where she was or personal identity, only that the instinct to get away had to be obeyed. It seemed to matter little that this same instinct had no idea where 'away' was.

Her screaming gave way to ragged breaths as her lungs demanded heaving gulps of air to stop from fainting. In between her whimpers she heard a high pitched screeching echo from somewhere far away yet alarmingly close by and terror took hold again.

She had to get away, but this time the panic induced was more practiced and she immediately thought of her tunnel network to escape, but she had been so scared she had no idea where she was heading. The enclosed corridor suddenly opened up into a giant stairwell and she stumbled against a railing. Looking through her filthy hair, she was afforded a clear view of the next few floors down and saw several black shapes racing up towards her.

She recoiled back from the railing as though thrown back from an electric shock and spun around, looking for an exit. Shadows swallowed the walls and hid any details, including her precious air vents.

The creatures below screeched again, cutting her ears like nails on a chalk board and she ran back the way she came. But in her haste she tripped over something on the floor and tumbled down. Hands looked for the obstacle and retrieved it unthinking as she struggled back to her feet and continued on.

Running only half blind now she checked whatever it was she had managed to pick up as it was quite heavy and was astonished to discover it was a pistol. She had never held one before and was overtaken by an odd curiosity that stopped her in her tracks.

Turning around to face back towards the stairwell her mind broke down and analysed the scene using more rational forces. Without consciously commanding her arms, she found them gripping the gun in front of her ready to fire.

A giant black lizard emerge from beneath the stair lip and crawled through the railing. Two others quickly followed and three sets of crystal teeth glistened in the low light, smiling.

It was too late now. Even though they had no discernable eyes, they saw her and shot forward. Hugging the shadows on the walls and ceiling they raced silently yet Rebecca strangely wasn't quite as afraid as she supposed she should be. After all she was about to die horribly.

Her eyes settled on the gun again and through the sights she saw something curious. A large yellow pipe was running along the wall, "PROPANE" prominently stencilled in a gaudy red. Without delay, Rebecca aimed the heavy gun with her skinny arms and fired. The gun bucked and the noise was deafening, but she pulled the trigger again and again. As much as she knew she had to watch what she was doing in order to aim the deadly weapon, she couldn't help her eyes flinching closed with each shot and prayed she somehow managed to stay on target.

Her first shot was high, but the next hit home fracturing the pipe and letting a hiss of gas out as another ricocheted off a steel beam causing a spark.

A flame caught and the corridor exploded, engulfed in a fireball as the gas line ruptured.

Rebecca was blown off her feet and shoved back down the corridor tumbling as the gun sailed out of her hands. The creatures shrieked as they were bathed in fire and crushed against the opposite wall by the force of the explosion. Dead in an instant their carapaces broke apart and exploded, sending flaming chunks of obsidian flesh in all directions.

The world seemed upside and inside out, but Rebecca managed to open an eye and regain her bearings. Her head ached terribly and her body tingled as she regained awareness. A niggling urgency gripped and she was horrified to find her clothes burning. Already ragged and torn she squirmed her way out of them, emerging naked and covered in a grimy sweat.

The air was unbearably hot and felt as though every laboured breath was searing her lungs.

The great flame continued to pour out into the corridor, melting the floor and walls like a waterfall of lava. The roar was that of a dragon.

Mesmerised by the spectacle of the angry blaze, she idly backed away until finally breaking into a run. The instinct to escape took hold again and she found her favourite duct opening by the kitchen and scrambled away back into the tunnels.

Inside her steel home, in the belly of her protective maze she shivered both from the cold and the rush of adrenaline that was beginning to withdraw from her system. Echoing through the vents, a furious cry pierced the quiet as the enemy discovered three of their companions had been vaporised.

She didn't know it, but fortunately the raging flame and its pervasive heat disguised her scent and her heat trail, leaving them confounded and searching fruitlessly for her.

None of these thoughts were with Rebecca as she felt nausea rise from her stomach. She retched onto the floor and couldn't stop her hands from shaking.

Cold, alone and naked she descended into uncontrollable sobs and wished for nothing more in the world than to be wrapped in her mother's arms.


	10. Chapter 10

**Author's note: It's been a long time (2 years I think), but I've re-caught the writing bug and am keen to see this one move along again.**

Chapter 10

Ferro guided the drop ship towards the facility following a pre-set path logged in by Spunkmeyer sitting behind her. LV-426 was a desolate place, but beautiful in a very depressing way. There was no vegetation, only rocky desolation in all directions cut into all sorts of shapes, sizes and formations by the wind and rain. Grey mountains stabbed up into the black sky like giant stalactites, hiding amongst interspersed patches of fog and low cloud. Ferro maintained the dropship high enough so that she didn't need to worry about weaving between mountains and valleys, but low enough so that there was a view to see.

The way to the facility was shown in front of her on a heads up display. The facility's location had been marked in orbit and it was simply a matter of following a yellow line to it. In a potential battle scenario, Ferro would have hugged the contours of the landscape, but it was as yet unnecessary. A long wide valley cut off to the right and Ferro briefly entertained the idea of sweeping in and flying through it like a kid skateboarding through a spillway, but dismissed it as a moment's daydream.

Quickly enough the yellow line flashed indicating the facility was about to come into view and Ferro slowed her flying beast, preparing to circle for an initial inspection. The line flashed brighter, but a cluster of fog obscured the view.

"Where's the damn beacon?" she said, impatiently.

A large mountainous formation gradually materialised as the fog thinned and then cleared. It would not have looked out of place amongst the natural landscape except for its sheer size and the presence of various spotlights interspersed amongst the exterior. Hundreds of pipes weaved their way in, out and around the structure like a web of veins. Ferro was gliding roughly 150 metres up and she estimated the structure reached another 100 metres further up into the sky. She noted how the structure was surrounded by low lying cloud, but the sky was clear immediately above it, affording a clear view all the way up to the stars.

Gorman, Burke, Ripley and Bishop scanned the scene intently from the APC inside the dropship's hold. A myriad of view screens had lit up showing the clouded picture as best they could from a multitude of tiny cameras mounted on the dropship's side. The APC's cabin was a dark and claustrophic place, having grown more so as the smell of sweat and anticipation started to creep in. Ripley's was absently thankful the bank of screens before them was so bright.

Gorman sat in his chair in front of the bank of screens, Bishop standing on his right and Ripley and Burke on his left looking over his shoulders. Various screens adjusted, showing filtered views, progressively eliminating cloud, artificially brightening the dull scene and another scanning through the conical mound to show a tangled schematic within.

"That's the atmosphere processor?" Ripley asked.

"Yep, that's it." Burke chimed in.

"Remarkable piece of machinery. Almost completely automated." Bishop offered.

"Yes, you mentioned in your testimony that-" Burke caught himself and could feel Ripley burrowing her eyes into the back of his head as he maintained his eyes on the screen. "-your story that the atmosphere wasn't breathable. Nitrogen heavy. It's safer to build one of these processors and terraform the atmosphere so that prospectors can venture out freely. Freeman's case in the 20's made sure of that."

"Freeman's case?" Gorman enquired.

"Freeman worked on a planetoid as a geologist. Unprocessed atmosphere so he was in a suit. Suit malfunctioned and he died. His family sued and legal requirements were put in from then on."

"I'm assuming it's not cheaper putting in a full blown processor." Ripley said.

Burke shrugged.

"I bet." Agreed Bishop as he moved to the front of the APC and sat in the driver's seat. Ripley moved to replace Bishop on Gorman's right. The cabin was tight and she preferred not to have to almost rub against Burke to see properly. Burke was similarly relieved.

"How does that thing work?" asked Hicks, craning his neck to see, still seated towards the back of the APC amongst the other marines. Burke turned and saw the rest of the marine contingent were just as curious. They were quiet when they were usually joking or psyching themselves up just before deployment.

"The nitrogen compounds in this atmosphere are heavier than oxygen so the oxygen in the air sits in the upper atmosphere like oil on water." Bishop answered over the radio so he didn't have to raise his voice. "The upper atmosphere is then heavily ionised causing the nitrogen to rise up, like it's magnetised to the field. The nitrogen rises and the vacuum effect brings the oxygen down. It's treated further, but that's essentially what happens."

"I thought it was just a giant filter." Gorman said.

"You could do it that way, but where do you then put the billions of tons of nitrogen that the filter catches?" Bishop replied.

"Underground?" Hudson suggested.

"Too expensive." Burke answered.

"And the hole you would need would have to be gargantuan and plugged with concrete." Bishop added.

"Up yo' ass." One of the marines joked idly.

"The processor is a giant fusion reactor. The ionisation process is very energy hungry." Bishop continued. "Mostly unmanned except for the odd engineer."

Gorman wasn't interested in the science, focussing on the mission. He spoke into his mouthpiece. "Ferro, sweep over the complex."

"Roger."

Ferro broke her gentle circle, banking lower and away from the processor towards another pre-mapped co-ordinate on her heads up display. It came within view quickly below and she set the drop ship into another gentle circle as the mounted cameras focused on the new target.

The outpost was brought up on the monitors in the APC, looking for signs of life and confirming the layout. The zig zag of enclosed metal walkways between great clustered bunkers resembled a giant intestinal tract, illuminated only by navigational spot lights at each corner of the maze. It was set in a natural plateau, surrounded by knives of grey rock all around like hairs surrounding a pimple.

"Admin offices and living quarters." Burke chimed in. "Enough for 200-odd people."

"We hope." Ripley replied, deadpan.

Gorman ignored the banter, reviewing the various view screens looking for signs of life. "Storm shutters are sealed. No visible activity and no response to the radio hail."

"What mining were they thinking of doing here anyway?" asked Ripley.

"Lithium mainly and rare earths apparently. Iridium." Burke said. "Lithium for batteries, Iridium for touch screens."

"Oh."

"They're just doing prospecting for the moment. Some major deposits were found from an orbit scan, but you need guys on the ground to do locals scans and marked everything out properly." Burke continued and pointed at the screen.

Gorman eyed a separate screen that showed a schematic of the facility. It was a tangle of white lines and nothing more. "No bio-movement detected. OK Ferro, set down on the landing grid."

"Roger." Ferro's voiced chimed in over the radio amongst a slight blur of static.

"Immediate dust off on my clear then stay on station." Gorman looked to Apone who nodded.

"A'right. Gear up, people." Apone ordered as he rose out of his seat, his body blocking off the marines from the front half of the APC where Gorman, Burke, Bishop and Ripley sat.

The rest of the marines rose out of their seats and went about retrieving their weaponry stowed away in the equipment racks. Ripley watched them and looked away. Amongst the dimness of the back of the cabin, the marines looked like those aliens in their combat armour, writhing around amongst each other.

"You alright?" Burke asked.

"Yes."

"We're ready, sir." Apone said over his shoulder.

"Roger." Gorman acknowledged without taking his eyes off the screens. He had switched many of the screens over to display vital signs readouts of the marines. Each of them had a tiny unit surgically implanted beneath the skin and amongst the ribcage that relayed their heart rate and oxygen intake amongst various other signals. Gorman watched the red lines for their heart beats bounce rhythmically.

Each marine also had a shoulder or helmet mounted camera which Gorman checked was feeding to his monitors. "Hudson, I can see that." Hudson was giving Apone the finger as his back was turned and the hand gesture was clearly visible on his screen.

"Approaching landing pad." Ferro said.

Ripley could feel her stomach lift up as the drop ship dipped closer to the ground in an aggressive dive. Just as quickly, a loud crashing noise filled the cabin and the descent halted suddenly as the dropship touched down, almost knocking her and Burke off their feet.

"Down and clear!" Ferro signalled over the radio.

Bishop did not hesitate as the drop ship's cargo ramp opened and he drove the APC down and out. Again, the force of the departure was so sudden and strong that Ripley and Burke were again almost tumbled over. Apone shot a hand out and guided Ripley into her seat, leaving Burke to stumble into his.

Amongst the roar and vibration of the APC's engine, Ripley heard the high pitched whine of the drop ship as it lifted off again and pitched up and away. The APC bucked as Bishop led it down the landing pad's ramp and swung it around towards the complex.

"10 seconds, people! Look sharp!" Apone shouted. "Vasquez and Drake leading, Squads A and B left and right back-up positions!"

Ripley could feel the fear creeping up her skin from her fingers to her shoulders and settling around her neck. It was dark, smelly and difficult to breath. Again the APC bucked, shoving her in her seat as it braked to a stop. A sharp stab of cold air rushed into the cabin as the side door was shoved open.

"Let's go! Move it out!" Apone shouted.

Ripley's face was coated with sweat and the shock of cold wind on hot skin dispelled her rising panic as the cabin emptied into the breach.

XXX

Hands alive with adrenaline gripped the SMART gun securely, sweeping left and right with measured practice. The rush of an engagement, or even just entering the field, was what every marine lived for, but the difference between a good marine and an also-ran was how the rush was controlled. If you got too excited, you tired yourself out, pulled the trigger too soon and made stupid decision that got yourself killed or got your squad mates killed.

Pvt Vasquez hands were abuzz but she regulated her breathing and made sure to periodically adjust her grip to save her fingers cramping. Blood needed to flow freely to preserve touch.

Rain bucketed down in a sheet so thick she could barely discern individual droplets in front of her. Her squad mates depended on her and Drake in situations such as this as her eye piece linked to her SMART gun scanned the locale for unidentified movement. Pulses of high frequency waves shot out in invisible arcs every one hundredth of a second from a small antenna attached to her monstrous weapon, detecting particle movement that mimicked lifelike functions. Walking, breathing, even the internal movement of blood flowing around a body were picked up and relayed back like SONAR bouncing off a suspect surface. The signals detected of her squad mates were automatically identified as friendly, whilst inorganic movements such as doors opening, objects blowing in the wind and even the rain were filtered out as extraneous.

Nevertheless, Vasquez preferred never to actually rely on it and scanned her eyes carefully over the scene as though her SMART gun's reassuring outputs didn't exist.

The ground was slick with mud, pools of water almost ankle deep nearly every step as she and Drake led forward out of the APC and towards the facility.

"Fall up." Apone's voice cut sharp and clear over the radio amongst the dull roar of the rain and the heavy splashing of boots behind her.

Drake led and Vasquez flanked on his right through a small clearing. Shards of rock behind her provided cover for the rest of the squad and she knew even as they were in the open, at any time multiple pulse rifles in trained hands were cover her with all senses alert. She was unafraid and pushed forward towards the complex.

A large tractor-like rover sat idle by a garage. Grime smeared on the front roller door and the spot lights above smashed. Drake veered around the garage to check down beside it for bogeys and Vasquez moved around him towards the main complex only 10 metres beyond. Through the blurred rain, a giant doorway sat closed as big as the APC. Vasquez proceeded forward looking for threats lying in wait and signalled over her shoulder after finding none.

"Move up." Apone ordered gruffly and the squads came up behind and around Vasquez in a semi-circle formation, looking outward now. Apone rushed up to the door and opened a flip top console, pressing a button within that controlled the door. A small screen indicated the door was locked. "Hudson, run a by-pass."

Hudson slung his rifle and stood before the console. From a leg pocket he produced a tablet computer. The flip top console had a USB port below the opening button and he plugged his device in. The tablet computer was a military grade hacking tool, pre-loaded with override commands that the door was pre-prepared to recognise in the case of an emergency as part of its standard software. Within an instant, the hacking tool had obtained approval, the console beeped and the door groaned to life, opening by sliding apart from the middle. Vasquez, Drake and Apone were ready, guns up and fingers hovering over their triggers. The view within was almost pitch black, but the shoulder mounted lights of the marines illuminated the scene before them to reveal another door just like the one they opened, forming an airlock.

Vasquez, Drake, Apone and Hudson proceeded within together and Hudson again utilised his hacking device to interface with the console panel and override the locking mechanism designed to never let both door remain open at once. Once again the door opened with Vasquez, Drake and Apone at the ready, this time revealing a corridor that spilled away from them like a tunnel, enough to accommodate six people abreast. The floor was raised steel and pipes and bulkheads lined the walls and ceilings. Down the way they could see intersections where the corridor zig-zagged off in other directors.

The rain behind them had dulled almost to silence and all eyes fixed ahead looking for anything untoward. The view was pristinely clean, revealing nothing out of the ordinary other than the fact it was completely empty and silent. Immediately to the right was a stair well leading up to a second level. Other marines silently poured in behind and trained their guns on all openings.

"Hicks, your squad up to second level." Apone whispered into his mic.

Hicks appeared through the doorway and Drake followed in behind as he proceeded up the stairs with his squad, everyone looking through their gun sights. Hudson waited for everyone to come inside and sealed both of the airlock doors behind them.

The APC remained outside, its door closed and Gorman glued his eyes to the feed coming from the marines inside. "Arming turret gun, set to target lock only."

The twin-barrelled machine gun mounted on the back of the hulking APC moved along a set track up onto the roof and lifted up. Set on a ball-swivel joint, it could target in virtually any direction, including straight up and down, although programmed to avoid firing on the APC itself. It was alive for the purposes of tracking non-friendlies now that the marines were clear of the field, but would only fire if Gorman authorised via an arming switch.

Back inside the complex, the marines inched forward, sweeping their weapons back and forth. Apone and his squad proceeded down the first corridor, with Hicks reaching the top of the stair well, stopping short as he slowly and silently raised up and peered into the open. The top of the stairwell opened up into a small foyer with a similar corridor snaking down the same direction as the floor below. Besides two upturned plastic chairs, the scene was quiet. Nothing appeared broken or out of place except for the absence of any human presence. A vase with plastic flowers sat in the corner flanked by a framed painting of a sunset landscape, set perfectly straight on the wall.

"Doesn't look good does it?" Burke murmered back in the APC as he watched the feed from Hick's helmet camera.

"This is not normal so far. Something has definitely happened." Gorman replied humourlessly and spoke into his mic. "Hicks, Hudson use your motion trackers."

Both of them unslung a cube-shaped device, holding it in front of them showing a blue screen that blipped as movement-detecting pulses like Vasquez and Drake's SMART guns, only higher powered and more targeted. Detected organic movement was indicated by a warning high-pitch that increased in tone the closer it was and a blip on the screen according to position of the detected signal.

Hudson's and Hicks trackers blipped like a heartbeat, detecting nothing at first and then fired into life, detecting bogeys behind the way they came.

"What the fuck?" Hudson swore.

"Where is it?" asked Gorman impatiently.

Hicks and Hudson were specifically trained to handle motion tracking units and how best to read them. "Outside!" Hicks shouted.

A screen inside the APC flashed, as the roof-mounted turret tracked a target and trained in on it. The software highlighted the target, taking a snapshot of the target that appeared and just as quickly disappeared again.

"What's happening?" Apone snapped.

"It's retreating whatever it is. Running goddamn fast!" Hudson replied. The trackers fell silent after only seconds.

"These trackers are set to fifty metres and whatever it was disappeared and shot off the screen fucking fast." Hicks said.

"Too fast for a human." Apone replied.

"Agree." Gorman said.

"Sir, did you get a visual?" Apone asked.

Gorman peered at the photograph the turret took and both Ripley and Burke almost smothered him as they strained to see. He pushed them off angrily.

"Unidentified. The turret barely saw anything." Gorman reported back.

"Could be a false alarm."

"Too fucking fast, man."

"Can't be right."

"Everyone shut their shit!" Apone shouted, causing the gossiping marines to go quiet and resume combat posture. Silence hung for a moment as the marines re-surveyed their surroundings, now on edge.

"Proceed as planned. Secure the complex, find central access." Gorman ordered into the mic.

Ripley and Burke looked at each other, nervous and excited respectively.

"Roger." Apone replied and directed the squads to resume their sweep.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Looking down the sights of his pulse rifle, Cpl Hicks led his team down the lonely corridors of the complex. Fingers wrapped tightly around the grip and under-barrel of his firearm, but he consciously relaxed his trigger finger. He was careful to roll his boots as much as he could to dull any noise as he crept around. More seasoned than his team, it grated on his nerves that they didn't do the same.

"Quiet your steps!" he whispered harshly.

Pvt Drake crept beside Hicks, flanking his superior officer with his monstrous SMART gun. It was a heavy weapon, cumbersome in confined spaces and primarily designed for combat in the open. Drake halted outside of a half open door, allowing Pvt Frost and Pvt Dietrich to investigate inside as Hicks fell in beside Drake manning the motion tracker which beeped passively, detecting nothing.

Frost and Dietrich moved in rhythm, Dietrich leading with her flame thrower that would engulf the room and Frost with his pulse rifle to provide supporting firepower if need be. The doorway opened into an office cubicle, sporting a quadrangle of desks with papers, stationary and desk chairs strewn about. The computer at the nearest desk was still open, having lulled into a screensaver showing a cartoonish caricature of a cat bouncing around. Dietrich and Frost spread apart, checking corners, looking under the desk and looking for any other doors or walkways that peeled off and found nothing untoward. However, it was apparent from the mess that some sort of altercation or struggle had occurred. Only one of the six chairs in the room was on its feet.

"Clear."

"Clear."

They moved smoothly out of the office and into the empty corridor where Hicks and Drake moved up to the next doorway. They repeated the process several times, investigating every room and cupboard as they moved up the corridor methodically. Most rooms were relatively clean although indicated a lived in state, such as unmade beds, clothes left on the back of chairs or rubbish bins full of waste paper or desiccated food scraps. In one bedroom they found a blood stain smeared across the wall consistent with an arterial spray. It had become dry and dark brown, indicating it was several days old. The room however didn't smell of death. Faint wafts of fresh cool air indicated the air-conditioning system was still working.

"Sir? You see this?" Hicks asked over his radio mic.

"Affirmative. No body?" Gorman replied from the confines of the APC still parked outside in the rain.

"Confirm no body, sir."

"Alright. Continue sweep."

"Copy that."

Hicks led his squad further up the corridor where it branched off in a four way crossroad.

"Drake, maintain position. Hicks you take the left, Frost and Dietrich pair off to the right." Gorman ordered coolly, viewing everything via their shoulder mounted cameras.

Drake smirked as his squad mates slowly left him in the middle of the crossroad junction. He kept his eyes mainly on the corridor ahead and could see it came to an end about 30 metres down the way with a rather large closed door on the right. He checked back the way they came and squinted in the gloom looking for the stairway they originally emerged from. He check left and right and found that his squadmates had already disappeared through doorways. The passive hum of the air conditioning joined with a distant whine of the wind outside. It was an unsettling sound, but he simply cleared his throat and tightened the grip on his weapon. He shifted his weight on his feet to avoid pins and needles.

Quickly enough, however, his comrades all emerged as before having found nothing in particular and rejoined him. Together they moved down the corridor amongst a tangle of sewerage and gas pipes that led down through the floor and gathered at the closed doorway in flanking positions.

Hicks silently counted to three and disengaged the door lock. Drake stepped into the threshold as the doorway split apart with a robotic drone and scanned the way for threats. It was a large open room filled with banks of wall and desk mounted computers and the ceiling was a large clear window, however the storm shutters blocked any view. The lights were dim and even turned off amongst some desks and so Drake relied on his SMART gun feed to look for unaccounted for movement. Frost and Dietrich quick fell in beside him and checked each desk. Hicks covered their rear with an eye on the motiontracker which still beeped passively, finding nothing.

"Sir." Frost beckoned for Hicks to come over and showed a computer screen still on. A document was open and in the process of being saved and waiting for confirmation. Hicks sat down and cancelled the save request and quickly scanned the document. It was only three lines long.

_Day 3 4:34 pm_

_Longham is dead so it's just myself, Jones and Zhu. We've lost radio contact with O'Gregan in the Storage Lockers on Sub level 2, so we're assuming those things have broken through and got them. Some good news though and we've manag-_

"Sir. Room is clear, although I've found a hand..." Dietrich said, gesturing from across the room.

Hicks jogged over as Drake and Frost covered the room's only other exit. Hicks found the severed hand lying on the floor like a crushed huntsman spider. It was the hand of a white woman by the look of the slender shape of the fingers and lengthy fingernails, even taking into account slight decay and covered in crusted brown blood. Strands of flesh and nerves dangled from the mangled stump as he carefully picked it up and lifted it up in front of him for the benefit of Gorman's views through his helmet camera.

"Good God." Burke murmured and Ripley clenched her jaw and kept quiet, trying to swallow down a wave of panic.

Gorman stared at the screen with a strange fascination. "Is that all? Our only human remains?"

"That's all I saw." Dietrich replied as Drake and Frost looked on nervously. Hicks furrowed his brow and turned the handover, dangling it by one of the fingers set in rigour mortis.

"This has been torn. Ripped off. No clean cut." Hicks reported.

"Concur." Bishop agreed sitting next to Gorman and watching intently. "Dietrich, Hicks pan around and look for blood."

"It's on the desk just here." Dietrich gestured behind where she stood. The desk and computer screen was splattered with more crusted brown blood stains and the computer screen was cracked.

"Hey look!" Drake said gruffly, pointing up to a vent in the ceiling. The grating was bent outward at awkward angles from inside as though it has exploded from within.

"They're using the air shafts." Ripley said immediately. "Just like on my ship."

"We haven't sighted one of those things yet." Gorman said.

Burke raised his hand and barred Ripley from launching into him, "Calm down! I think it's pretty safe to say this isn't a simple case of personnel abandoning post or goofing off. We've got a situation."

"Goddamn right." Ripley muttered still straining against Burke's hand.

Gorman began to sweat as his marine contingent listened on. "Apone, you found anything yet?"

"No sir. Continuing our sweep on the ground floor, haven't found anything in particular. No blood or bodies. Not even structural damage. Place is clean so far." Apone replied over the radio.

Gorman swallowed and steadied himself. As leader, he had to remain calm or at least appear to remain calm. Grunts despised nothing more than a lack of spine and cool in their superior officer. If Ripley's monsters had overrun the complex, he needed his men focused and battle-ready. "Alright. For the moment, this doesn't change anything. We still need to sweep the complex and secure a perimeter. Continue on sweep."

"Roger." Apone and Hicks saluted in kind and directed their soldiers onward.

Drake and Frost led the way towards the unopened doorway in the empty control room, with Hicks and Dietrich flanking in behind them. Hicks eyed the motion tracker once again as Frost moved to open the large sliding door. The reading was still blank. He wasn't sure if he should be thankful or not. By Ripley's account, those monsters were cunning and quick. One could be hiding right above him in the air shafts sitting motionless waiting for him to turn his back. But then again, the motion trackers were designed to detect the most minute of lifelike movements, including breathing and blood flow. He reminded himself he was working with state of the art equipment and able squadmates and focused on the job at hand. That's why he was a corporal. He knew how to get the job done and keep his nerve. Tough under pressure and a solid example for his teammates.

"Open it." He whispered.

Frost tapped the mechanism and the doorway opened with a quiet motorised squeak. Drake immediately poured through into a corridor much like the others they had already searched and let his SMART gun scan for immediate threats, finding none. The soldiers fell into line and continued on methodically searching the offices and cubicles that sprouted off from the main corridor. Soon they reached the end of the corridor, coming to a T-intersection. The corridor way on the left was another corridor that fell into pitch black darkness after only 10 or so metres. The lights appeared to be blown out. The other way opened up into a cafeteria hall with chairs tangled into large clusters, strewn about.

"Drake, Frost stay here and guard. I want Drake SMART gun looking into the dark. Dietrich, with me."

Hicks and Dietrich crept off side by side towards the hall, Hicks eyeing the motion tracker.

"Sir." Dietrich whispered sharply and pointed towards the cafeteria kitchen where the provisions freezer door sat ajar. Hicks nodded as they headed towards it, Dietrich focusing on the potential threat as Hicks eyed the other nooks and crannies of the kitchen around them. Keeping their footsteps as silent as possible, they crept amongst the kitchen bench tops and oven as the light dimmed. Hicks noted the globes on the ceiling were destroyed, the steel housings buckled with deep striations carved into the metal.

Scratch marks.

"They've been here. They took out the lights." Hicks whispered into the mic.

"Classic animal behaviour. Watch yourself Hicks." Burke replied.

Dietrich approached the freezer doorway and reached out a hand. Her fingertips brushed the door handle and gently pulled it open. The door swung effortlessly and silently to reveal the freezer within. Shelving lined the walls of the room, packed with food stores, although pizza boxes were scattered amongst the floor in a mess. Otherwise, everything appeared undisturbed.

"Nothing." Dietrich whispered.

Hicks and Dietrich crept back out into the hallway and noted the corridor ended at the end of the hallway. A dead end. They doubled-back looking for other details and saw that some more of the air ducts were frayed and broken like the one back in the control room. Only one appeared to be open without any apparent damage. Hicks shined his torch down the opening and could see nothing but flashes of the steel duct casing disappear into a dark black void. He eyed his motion tracker once again and saw no signals detected.

"Nothing still?" Dietrich queried.

"These sorts of ducts must pass by all sorts of machinery. Fans and pumps. Might be difficult to detect a signal if its deep inside these ducts. But if anything is thinking of coming out, we'll see it before it does." Hicks reflected.

"Damn well hope so." Dietrich sighed as they joined up with Frost and Drake still holding position.

"It's a damn tomb so far." Drake muttered gruffly, adjusting his posture.

"Tomb with no bodies." Frost agreed.

"So far. Stay alert. You know how this works. The sooner you drop your guard the sooner Murphy's law kicks in and shit and the fan start dancing." Hicks cautioned.

"Damn straight." Dietrich agreed.

"Alright, then. Let's go." Drake turned and looked down the sights of his SMART gun display linked through a small visor on his helmet, ready to proceed into the dark. A red dot appeared and dashed across right to left and the weapon tugged in his hands, moved by the housing strapped around his waist to try and aim at the target.

"Signal!" Hicks shouted as his motion tracker sprang to life, whining loudly.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12: Chapter 12**

Chapter 12

"Signal!" Hicks shouted as his motion tracker sprang to life, whining loudly. "45 metres dead ahead and heading towards us."

Drake adjusted his grip on his SMART gun, tensing himself for action as Hicks, Frost and Dietrich took cover against the walls behind metal beams. Drake kept his eye trained on his HUD mounted on his head strap, relying on its targeting software to identify targets in the darkness. His shoulder mounted light pierced the gloom as best it could, but stopped short, engulfed by a smoky fog.

"30 metres, single bogey. Still coming this way."

"This is Apone, we're right under you, we can see a stairwell straight ahead, but no movement."

"Confirmed signal!" Hudson added, corroborating the reading from his own motion tracker.

"Identify bogey first. It could be a survivor." Gorman cautioned as Burke and Ripley pushed against him straining to watch the situation unfold on the viewscreens.

"Tug!" Drake shouted as his SMART gun detected movement and angled towards the detected target. His HUD painted the form in red, but it moved with such speed that it was difficult to see exactly what it was. Drake's HUD reading was immediately blown up on a viewscreen back in the APC. Gorman and Burke squinted, but Ripley knew straight away what it was.

"Kill it!" She screeched.

As though in answer, a high pitched scream emanated from the darkened corridor and set the marines' blood on ice. Like Ripley, instinct took over and they readied to fire, even though they couldn't actually see it yet. But Drake could and pulled his trigger, bracing himself for the sharp tug of hellfire to erupt, but nothing happened.

"Goddamn it! Turn me on!" He yelled into his mic at Gorman. Gorman had not yet remotely set his weapon to live from the APC, rather staying on target mode only.

"15 metres! Frost, get ready!" Hicks yelled as the gloom parted in a swirl as something disturbed the smoke.

Frost trained on the anomaly and fired his pulse rifle. The corridor was suddenly bathed in sharp strobe lighting as his rifle spewed forth its staccato roar. Amidst the display, the form of something dark and distinctly foreign was visible surging towards them, hugging against the wall. In an instant, Frost's training kicked in, limiting his gun fire to a 4 four round burst as he quickly readjusted his aim and fired again, training across his target. The black dragon, now within reach of their shoulder lighting was distinctly visible as it was torn apart. It dropped to the floor and instantly lay still.

The four man squad held their position, training their lights on the fallen target and listened. The air stank of an acrid burning, a typical smell following discharge of their weapons. But it soon became a sharper more offensive smell following by a hissing sound.

"Back up! Acid!" Ripley yelled into he mic from the APC as the marine staggered back in time to see white smoke waft up all around from the fresh carcass. It quickly began to sink into the floor.

"Apone! Back up! It'll drop on you!" Ripley yelled again.

"Copy, we see it!" he replied as pale green droplets began to spill from the ceiling before them. The two marine squads watched in bemused fascination as the creature sank through, a taloned arm draped down through the ceiling below as the rest of the body followed suit and fell to the floor before Apone's squad. The white smoke continued to hide the creature's form as it continued to burn into the floor without any sign of stopping. Before long, the creature disappeared from view below in a deathly shroud.

Apone and his squad cautiously crept forward towards the hole in the floor to look down and could see the steel flooring and concrete outer shell of the complex had given way, completely dissolved. It had even begun to eat into the rocky soil, but quickly dissipated although smoke continued to billow out.

"Jesus Christ." Hudson whispered as the rest of the marines as well as Gorman, Bishop, Burke and Ripley watched on in silence.

"Movement!" Hicks yelled into the mic, rudely snapping everyone's attention back to the task at hand. "Multiple signals, due north. Stairwell 45 metres!"

"Copy reading!" Hudson squealed.

"Defensive line!" Apone shouted. The two squad's jolted as his booming voice shot into their earpieces and each squad fell into covering positions facing down the hallway the first creature originally came from.

"I'm fucking off-line!" Drake screamed angrily. "Turn me on!"

Gorman quickly reached across his keyboard and pressed an icon. Vasquez and Drake's profile immediately sprang up and their status switched from "Target" to "Live", highlighted in a blood red font.

"Confirm Vasquez and Drake are armed!" Gorman reported breathlessly.

"Say again!" Apone replied as Gorman half whisper was lost amongst the static.

"I said Vasquez and Drake are fucking on!" Gorman growled this time as Burke and Ripley looked at each other worriedly. Gorman grit his teeth, and wiped his forehead with his cap. It was soaked with sweat. Burke and Ripley couldn't see it amongst the dark glow of the cabin, but Gorman was pale. His hands were shaking as he anchored them to the console, his knuckles straining white.

"How many are there?" Ripley asked through her mic.

"Now twenty, more coming!" Hicks barked back.

"I got 24!" Hudson replied.

Hicks looked up at his squad and saw them looking down the smoky corridor with resolute and focused eyes. Their combat instincts and training were alive, keeping their nerve in check and fear at bay. Drake was grinning and bounced on his toes like a boxer ready to engage. They fell back away from the smoking hole in the floor, away from the choking acidic burn and looked into the darkness down their gun sights.

"Dietrich, lay a volley down there. Light it up!" Hicks shouted and Dietrich sprung forward into a crouch and steadied her weapon in her hands.

"Fire in the hole!" She shouted and at the pull of her trigger the gun spewed forth a giant cloud of roaring flame down the corridor. The nozzled barrel of Dietrich's flame thrower was specially designed to direct the flame and associate heat towards the target, but in the enclosed and confined space of the corridor, Dietrich had to close her eyes and Hicks, Drake and Frost winced as they were washed with an uncomfortable warmth that threatened to boil their skin until Dietrich ceased fire after only a moment. The flame continued on down the way, tangling inward as it consumed itself and died. The glow dissipated, but lingered long enough for the marines to catch a glimpse of obscured movement coming over the lip of the stairwell ahead.

"Again!" Hicks shouted.

Dietrich had already begun to squeeze the trigger, anticipating the order and Hicks barked order was half lost amongst the roar of the flame. Again the raging cloud spewed forth down the confined corridor although Dietrich held the trigger for a split second longer this time. The flame had enough fuel this time to billow out further and engulf the entirety of the corridor ahead and spill over the stairway entrance. As the fire began to implode and die, alien screams stung the squad's ears. Several of the black figures were completely immolated and scrambled amongst each other. The maelstrom had so engulfed them that it was impossible to tell how many individual targets had been lit.

The screeches of the panicking monsters intensified and the marines winced at the shrill sound, almost empathising. However, several figures broke away from the tangled burning mess towards them and the marines readied themselves to fire. Before they had a chance, the burning figures exploded into nothingness. Drake watched as the lit targets on his HUD disappeared one by one as though a chain reaction leaped amongst them. He grinned devilishly, likening the sudden combustion of the monsters like watching popcorn go off. He even thought it sounded similar.

As quickly as the engulfed monsters suddenly disappeared, more figures spilled up and over the crest of the stairwell and surged down the corridor towards them, fanning out and hugging the walls and ceiling as though gravity counted for nothing.

"One more!" Hicks shouted.

Again Dietrich pulled the trigger on her flamethrower and watched the flame completely consume the writhing black figures before her once more. As the immolated monsters again screamed and charged before exploding into nothing, Dietrich and Hicks' eyes met. The silent and anticipated order was for her to pull back as her flamethrower would be nearly empty. Whilst her weapon was a devastating one, especially in these conditions, it consumed the napalm gel fuel quickly and she estimated she only had one short volley left. Further, it generally took her up to ten seconds to reload a new canister. Hicks knew this well enough and signalled for Drake to step forward and take over.

"Finally." Drake muttered through grinning teeth as Dietrich crept behind him, ready to send her last volley past him if anything went wrong. Drake sifted amongst the last of the dying monsters on his HUD, looking for fresh targets through the smoke. His SMART gun identified and prioritised the targets closest to him and moving the fastest and lit them up in a pixellated glow. The gun tugged towards the first target from his hip harness and he squeezed the trigger with a hard crushing pull, relishing the staccato bark of the gun fire. The muzzle flash was enormous and spread out four ways like a St Andrews spider. Almost immediately after he pulled the trigger, the gun tugged across the way to the next target in a pre-calculated sweep. The targeting software always looked 3 or 4 targets ahead and planned the aim accordingly as the weapon was heavy and difficult to swap from left to right accurately without tiring the user. Ordinarily, Drake missed the organic connection between a weapon and the owner afforded by a conventional pulse rifle. He missed the requirement for skill in order to take down targets. But the pre-planning and lack of involvement due to the SMART gun's targeting intelligence was made up for by its sheer power. The massive weapon fired depleted uranium bullets almost double the calibre of the pulse rifle ammunition and spread inside the target after initial penetration for maximum damage.

All these details were lost on Drake as he let his weapon do the work and watched painted targets disappear on his HUD as they were torn apart and new ones appear. Despite the bulk of the weapon and the raging erection in his pants, Drake steered the weapon with a light touch, careful not to overcompensate his aim. "Let the gun do the hard work" was the idiom of his SMART gun qualification.

One after another, the obsidian alien creatures came over the stair well crest and were torn apart by Drake's barrage. Although they hugged the walls and ceilings, swarming like insects, his tracking system handled it smoothly. All too soon, however, the onslaught ceased and his gun went quiet. His HUD target system went dark.

"No painted targets, Hicks!" Drake yelled.

"Check your ammo, Drake." Hicks said as he checked his motion tracker. There were still several blips and the tracker still emitted its warning tone, although it tapered off like a slowing heartbeat. "They're retreating. Due north where they came from."

"Concur, Hicks baby!" Hudson guffawed.

"Check the floor!" Ripley said over the radio as the corridor filled with the familiar and sharp stench of acidic burn and white smoke.

"Way ahead of you. Or behind you, more like. We already backed up." Apone advised as he watched the ceiling overhead open up and begin to collapse inward.

"Jesus Christ!" all of the marines seemed to whisper in unison as the flooring and wall panels before them became a metallic jelly and slopped down through the opening floor. It was swiss cheese and then a gaping chasm. A parting of the steel sea.

"We should fall back to the Comm Labs." Apone suggested idly as we stepped away from the choked mess in a daze. He heard no reply from Lt Gorman. "Lieutenant, I recommend we fall back to the Comm Labs junction."

Everyone heard Apone's more urgent suggestion and waited for Lt Gorman's voice to respond, but the line was silent. Ripley and Burke stood side by side looking over his shoulder and could see he was in some sort of shock. He was frozen.

Ripley gently tapped him on the shoulder and he jerked in his chair. He looked up at the two of them with wide eyes and then seemed to gather his composure. He spoke into his mic. "Roger. Uh... Good idea Apone. Do that."

"Sir." Apone's voice responded through the faint static.

"You alright?" Ripley queried uncertainly.

"Hm? Fine." He replied absently and cleared his voice. "Hicks, how many do you think you took out?"

"Drake? You targeting HUD tracks this doesn't it?" Hicks prompted.

"It says 42 kills." Drake replied gruffly. "Fuckin' A."

"Watch your language." Hicks admonished, but Drake still beamed with sadistic pride.

Ripley and Burke again met eyes. A direct feed from Drake's HUD was up on a monitor right in front of them where Drake's count of 42 kills was visible for them all to see.

"Alright. Fall back to Comm Labs." Gorman ordered.

"Sir, we need to fortify this position. We should set up turrets." Hicks responded.

"Yeah, man. I wouldn't want those things to just fuckin' waltz up on us." Drake jibed. Hicks cuffed him over the back of his helmet.

"Yes. Hicks, Apone set up the turrets. Good idea. Reconvene at Comms Lab. This area is secure now." Gorman asserted.

"Sir?" Apone queried.

"Yes?"

"With all due respect sir, this area is not secure. We haven't finished our sweep of the complex. Besides this melted corridor, there's others we haven't checked out yet."

"Apone, we need to reconvene at Comms Lab. Post whatever guards you want. We need to figure out how to handle this." Gorman said more forcefully. "Meet us at the South entrance and escort us in."

"Roger."

Gorman removed his radio headset and sighed, slouching in his chair.

"Well, we've got a situation don't we?" Burke said to break the silence.

"Yes we do." Gorman muttered back quietly.

As Gorman slouched in his chair and Burke smirked with excitement, Ripley realised only then her hands had been balled into fists so tight that her fingernails had almost broken skin and she had been holding her breath. She exhaled slowly and tried to calm down.

Suddenly Gorman leaped out of his chair and across the cabin. He quickly found a dustbin and vomited.


End file.
